Tanjoubi no jutsu
by ChibiRisu-chan
Summary: A Side Effects side story for Kakashi's birthday Sept. 15. KakaIru, technical mpreg, Team 7, and wacky highjinks. Complete! Finally...
1. Part 1: Shopping no jutsu

**Tanjoubi no Jutsu  
**(aka "birthday jutsu" )

Missed Iruka's birthday thanks to crazy con prep/summer insanity, but here's a Side Effects side story for Kakashi's birthday... (sweatdrop) this is pretty much completely unedited 'cause I'm starting Sunday and I have to finish it fast if I'm going to get the chance before the 15th... of course, a late birthday present for Kakashi would be WAY too perfect. Anyway, hope y'all like?

It's probably not R-rated, but it's a little more insinuating than Side Effects is, so I figure it's safer to rate it too high and not get banned than to rate it too low and get banned... (sweatdrop)

I'm really REALLY hoping to finish the last piece tonight, but I've got a meeting, so the last bit might be tomorrow. But at least I had most of it done by the right day...? (and I'm never writing fic under a deadline again! I so wish I had time to edit this...)

* * *

Iruka had always loved the beginning of autumn; this year he was particularly delighted by it, though. August's heat and humidity was bad enough, but adding it to pregnancy's awkwardness and elevated body temperature made it even more miserable. The summer's sticky heat wave had finally broken, though, and some of the leaves were just beginning to turn colors; he smiled out the window at the gold-edged green of the tree in front of the schoolhouse, then quietly crept toward the bedroom door. 

Iruka was sure Kakashi had woken up when he moved; Kakashi never failed to notice the slightest sound, the slightest shift in motion in any room he was in, as a consequence of years of training and life on the ANBU front lines. But he was equally sure Kakashi was still pretending to be asleep, in order to wrench a few more minutes (or hours) of drowsing out of the morning.

This particular morning, Iruka planned to let him. As exasperating as it could sometimes be to need to physically evict his drowsily lecherous lover from the bed in the mornings, on this one day in particular, Iruka was counting on the fact that Kakashi rarely got up until he'd been either coaxed or threatened. It gave Iruka time to visit the market and buy sanma for his favorite breakfast.

Birthdays only happened once a year, and Iruka was determined to make the most of them.

The fishmonger in the village market was a tall, lanky, painfully shy young man who blushed even more ferociously than Iruka did; his grandmother took care of dealing with actual customers, and the little old grandmother was feisty and chatty enough for three or four grandsons. So Granny Sakamoto crowed greetings to the pregnant young schoolteacher, and bustled around the end of the counter to coo and pat the ripening mound of the baby and laugh at the strength of the kicks from within and deliver nonstop prenatal and parenting advice without apparently pausing for breath.

Today's lecture involved posture and the need to support the tummy and lower back as the pregnancy grew heavy; Iruka nodded when it seemed appropriate, and tried not to squeak when Granny smoothed the maternity gown over the baby-bulge and started a delighted commentary on how big Iruka's tummy was getting, and how carrying so high and forward meant a girl because boys were carried lower and broader in the hips, and so on and so forth. Sakamoto-kun the fishmonger, his face as red as his freshest tuna, gave Iruka a look that was so desperately helpless and apologetic that Iruka wished he could have gotten a word in edgewise to reassure the poor embarrassed young man.

Because really, although it _was_ a little embarrassing, Iruka understood that the old lady's delight in a young mother's pregnancy was sincere and heartfelt. And he had no parents of his own to make a fuss over the coming of a first grandchild; neither did Kakashi. So he stood and smiled down at the little old lady, and waited patiently for the gleeful chatter to swing around to the topic of what Iruka had actually come to buy.

This was the other reason Iruka was glad Kakashi rarely got up on his own. It wouldn't matter how long Granny Sakamoto wanted to chat before breakfast was ready... and if Kakashi was the type who _did_ get up early and come to market, then Iruka would have had to deal with Kakashi _meeting_ Granny Sakamoto. And then the imp in Kakashi would have been compelled to judge a blushing contest between Iruka and Sakamoto-kun, which would have meant the need to _cause_ a blushing contest between Iruka and Sakamoto-kun, and Granny Sakamoto would have been far too eager to assist, and they would have gotten along like a house afire -- rather too literally for the mental health of anyone in their vicinity, in fact. So, all in all, it was a _good_ thing that Kakashi took every excuse he could find to sleep in...

...ah, here was the magic phrase: "You know, we have some excellent clams in this morning and I was just telling Heisuke-kun that we should make some oden. Are you in the oden-making mood, Iruka-sensei?"

Iruka ordered some fresh and some salt-grilled sanma, because salt-grilled sanma with eggplant miso soup was Kakashi's favorite; and so Granny Sakamoto was nodding approvingly and starting in on a lecture about the importance of getting enough calcium for the baby, and enough protein, and plenty of seaweed too because of all the minerals and vitamins, and they had some good fresh wakame, here she'd throw some in free, have to make sure the baby's healthy and all, and they don't pay teachers enough, shameful really, teachers are vital for the children of the future! So of course Iruka had to take the wakame -- for the children's sake, all of them, the teacher had to stay healthy and set a good example -- now mind, wash it good because of the salt, and drink plenty of good green tea too, did they need some more tea? no? Well, Iruka knew where to come whenever they ran out -- and be sure to get that fish straight into the refrigerator at home, it's packed in ice but that'll melt in an hour in this weather...

Iruka kept smiling and bowing as he backed carefully out of the shop, feeling behind him with a toe before he set a foot down. Bowing had become awkward; his belly was growing more round and full, and so he couldn't quite bend properly anymore, but everyone seemed to understand, somehow. Granny Sakamoto giggled like a much younger girl at the clumsiness, and patted the baby-mound again, and shooed Iruka off toward home and the refrigerator for the fish.

There was one more stop he had to make on the way back, and this one took more mental bracing than Granny Sakamoto did; Iruka paused and took several careful, steadying breaths before he walked into the greengrocer's shop.

The greengrocer was an intimidating man: nearly seven feet tall and as broad as two of Iruka put together, all of it pure muscle. Iruka sometimes wondered if he'd gone into vegetables simply because anyone would have been too intimidated to walk into the butcher shop of a man with his build holding a cleaver and covered in blood and innards. And somehow, the greengrocer seemed to take Iruka's pregnancy as a personal affront; he glared and muttered, and took an almost vengeful satisfaction in making a point of personally choosing the best vegetables to sell to Iruka, as if to get the teacher out of his store more quickly.

Iruka had no idea what he'd done to offend the man, but the greengrocer _did_ sell wonderful vegetables; and so, firmly reminding himself that this was for a special occasion, Iruka slipped quietly into the shop and began looking for eggplant. Kakashi loved grilled eggplant in miso soup nearly as much as he loved Icha Icha Paradise. There was just no accounting for some people's taste.

A harrumph from behind startled Iruka, who clutched at his package of fish and turned around hastily. "Good morning, sir," he managed, and didn't quite squeak, and tried his best to bow deeply. For some reason, that gained another harrumph, and the grocer took the eggplant right out of his hands and put them back on the shelf and glowered.

"Er... are those not for sale? I'm sorry, I thought... I mean, they looked like they were for sale, and.." Iruka bit his lip hard to keep from letting any more of the nervous chatter escape.

The greengrocer glared at him for another long minute, then grunted, "Stay there," and turned on his heel and stalked into the back of the shop.

_Surely somebody else has eggplant,_ Iruka thought frantically, edging towards the door. _I don't know if he has a cleaver back there. For the pumpkins or something. --Somebody else _has_ to have eggplant..._

...too late; the greengrocer was coming back with a jar and a crockery pot in his hands, and he set them on the counter and _glared_.

"I'm sorry," Iruka said reflexively, torn between terrorized intimidation and the wild impulse to laugh at the sheer absurdity. "I didn't know the eggplants weren't for sale--"

"Not for you," the grocer said.

Iruka ran a hand down his face, and took a very careful breath to try to fight off the wave of sheer outrage, and he said very carefully, "I'm very sorry I've offended you somehow. It wasn't intentional. I don't even know what it is I've done. But if my business is that unwelcome, I'll shop elsewhere. If you'll excuse me--"

A huge hand came down on Iruka's shoulder, and he wavered for a minute. _A grade school teacher doesn't know how to break a man's elbow with a twist of the wrist. But if the other hand comes at me, his elbow's gone and the kneecap's next--_

"That's not it," the grocer said, scowling even more fiercely than usual. "They're not good. Not good enough."

Iruka felt his jaw drop open, but couldn't quite figure out what to do about it. He blinked up at the greengrocer several times, then tried again.

"I... er... what...?" he managed.

"These are better," the grocer said. "Yesterday's. Grilled them. You're buying them for breakfast miso? Don't bother with those. Take too long to salt, won't be done in time."

Feeling a little light-headed, Iruka carefully sat on the edge of a barrel and tried for coherence. "How...? I mean... huh...?"

The grocer pointed at the parcel of wrapped fish and its label. "Sanma," he said, and then pushed the jars closer across the counter with a fierce glare. "These are _better._ Take them!"

Hastily, Iruka scooped up the jars. "Uh... thank you? I, er, don't quite understand, but that's all right; I don't mind if you don't. I mean, do you mind? I can't tell, so I'm guessing, and I'm blathering now aren't I. I should shut up. I really should. Uh. Right. Eggplant. Already grilled. Thank you. Er... what's in the crock...?"

"Umeboshi," the grocer grunted. "For you. The shiso kind, not the salty kind."

Iruka blinked down at the little pot of pickled plums in utter bemusement.

Scowling at the floor, the grocer muttered, "Good for pregnancy. Sour. Vitamins too. Helps digestion. --Pregnant women eat a lot of umeboshi."

That was the longest complete sentence Iruka had ever heard from the man. He simply stared at the crock in his hands, and then up at the vegetable-loving surly giant.

The grocer thumped a huge fist on the countertop angrily. "...Bastard."

Now _completely_ confused, Iruka managed a "Huh?"

The grocer hauled a box of squash out from under the counter and produced an evil-looking cleaver and split one of the squash down the center, tearing the seeded guts out with his bare hands and flinging them into a scrap barrel. "Bastard," the grocer said again, and gutted another squash. "Doesn't deserve you. You're smart. You're a _teacher_."

The awe in the grocer's voice when he said 'teacher' was a little alarming. _I'm not feeling particularly smart right now,_ Iruka thought, and had to bite down hard on a laugh that wouldn't have been taken well. "I'm really sorry, sir, but I don't understand..."

"You're too smart for that bastard. Make him marry you. Or marry somebody better! For the baby." The grocer glared again, and pointed a finger dripping squash guts toward the swollen curve rounding the front of Iruka's maternity dress. "Someone should take care of you. Go shopping for you. Work for you. Let you rest. He doesn't. Bastard."

"That's not it at all!" Iruka said, startled. "I mean -- it's not that he's not... I _want_ to do these things, I really do. I'd go mad if I couldn't do anything but sit around, I like keeping busy, and besides it's his birthday, and I wanted to make him something-- it's not that he doesn't take care of me, he _does,_ just... not the way most people think of it, but... he's strong, and patient, and caring, even if he teases a lot too much, but it's all right because it's him-- I mean... I..." Iruka stopped and sighed. "I'm saying this all wrong, but..."

The grocer scowled down at his latest squash victim and tore the guts out with particular vehemence. "You love the bastard," he muttered.

"...Yes."

The grocer heaved a huge sigh. "Love makes people stupid."

Ruefully, Iruka said, "I suppose so, yes. What do I owe you for these?"

"Take them."

"But..."

The grocer transferred his glare from the squash to Iruka and growled, "I _said,_ _take them!_"

Iruka scooped up the groceries and fled.

* * *

Kakashi woke again when the front door opened, but the pattern of the footsteps -- just a bit hesitant lately, a bit of waddling side to side to compensate for the increasing bulk -- said _relax, it's Iruka_ before he was even aware of waking up. With a happy sigh, he snuggled his way further into the sheets and let himself drift back into dreams.

* * *

"No ramen?" Naruto wailed, blinking at the pot of miso soup Iruka was stirring. 

With a rueful sigh, Iruka gestured toward the other pot, which was covered to keep it warm. "Put the ramen in your miso."

"But it has _eggplant_ in it!" From the tone of the boy's voice, it sounded like eggplant was a virulent and agonizing poison.

"I know, but Kakashi likes it that way," Iruka replied mildly.

"Jeez. Just because it's his birthday you don't have to kill the rest of us..."

"You could always cook your own breakfast, you know."

Naruto gave him a look of such utter bemusement that Iruka started laughing despite himself.

"I take it you want chashuu ramen for breakfast on your birthday, then?"

Naruto nodded vigorously. "Lots of it!" Then his brow furrowed, and he looked at Iruka's belly. "Except you're going to be really fat by then."

"Excuse me," Iruka said, with half-lidded eyes.

"Well, you _are,_" Naruto said, leaning his elbows on the counter and staring at Iruka's bulge. "If you shouldn't be standing up and stuff when it gets around to my birthday, I could get Sakura-chan to do it if I tell her Sasuke asked..."

"It's all right," Iruka said wryly. "I'm not going to be too fat to stand up, you know."

Naruto still looked skeptical. Iruka reached over and swatted him on the head with the spoon. "I'm pregnant, not incapacitated," Iruka said sourly. "And I'm not going to get _that_ fat."

The boy wrinkled up his nose in thought. "You sure?"

Iruka hit him with the spoon again, then tossed it into the sink and got another.

"'Cause if you do get that fat, really, Sakura-chan would..."

Iruka went fishing in the sink. Only instead of coming out with the wooden spoon, he came out with a frying pan that he thumped against a palm meaningfully.

"I'm just saying!" With a reflexive hunch lower into the orange jacket, Naruto mumbled, "Sakura-chan says sometimes pregnant women have a hard time with the last couple months 'cause they're all tired out from carrying around the baby, and they need to stay lying down all the time with their feet up and stuff... so I'm just saying, if you want help or something..."

"...Oh." Iruka put the pan back in the sink, and reached over; Naruto ducked in case it was another swat, but Iruka just ruffled his hair. "If you're worried, why don't you just _say_ it that way, instead of going on for hours about how fat I'm going to be?"

Naruto rolled his eyes heavenward. "Picky, picky."

"Says the kid who won't eat eggplant in miso ramen."

"But it's _eggplant,_" Naruto said again, and heaved a huge sigh. "I know, I know, it's Kakashi-sensei's birthday. But he better not ask for eggplant for lunch or I'm gonna hurt him!"

"I do need to warn you," Iruka said, the corners of his lips twitching with a grin he was fighting back. "Chances are quite good that he's not going to ask for ramen for lunch _or_ dinner. Do you think you can survive?"

Naruto looked up at him with the face of a martyr in stained glass and heaved an enormous sigh. "It's just one day... right?"

Iruka nodded, and began ladling the soup into five bowls. "You can have ramen again tomorrow, I promise. And you _can_ put that ramen in with the miso if you like..."

"I'm _not_ gonna spoil perfectly good ramen with _eggplant_," Naruto said, shuddering.

"Your choice," Iruka said, and put lids on two of the bowls and set them on a tray that held a teapot and plates of grilled sanma arranged on shiso leaves. "I'm going to take these upstairs; will you tell the others that breakfast is ready if they want it?"

"Sure thing," Naruto said, staring glumly into his bowl. "There better be birthday cake or something later."

Iruka blinked, his hands pausing in the process of dishing rice into bowls to go with the soup. "...I didn't think of that."

"How do you _not_ think of _birthday cake?_"

A little sheepish, Iruka scratched behind an ear and said, "I was concentrating so hard on getting the soup right..."

"There _isn't_ a 'right' about eggplant!" Naruto planted both hands on his hips and shook his head in resignation. "Okay, somebody's going to have to do something about this. Got any birthday cake recipes or stuff?"

"No ramen in the cake!" Iruka said hastily.

Naruto shot him an incredulous look. "What kind of weirdo do you think I am?"

"Er..." _The obsessed with ramen kind?_ "Just checking," Iruka offered a bit lamely. "Here." He handed the boy some money and suggested, "Why don't you take the others to the bookstore after breakfast? I'm sure Sakura-kun will have some ideas on what makes a good cake cookbook, and you can get ingredients while you're there."

"Hmmmmm..."

Naruto looked a little _too_ contemplative, looking down at the handful of shopping money, but Iruka didn't feel like worrying about it just yet; first he had to survive feeding Kakashi breakfast in bed without getting molested and ending up with fish and miso all over their bedding.

Iruka crept into their room quietly; Kakashi looked asleep, but then he always did. He set the tray down carefully before he reached over to touch his lover's shoulder.

"Rrrrgh..." Kakashi rolled over onto Iruka's hand and rubbed his cheek against his forearm.

"Kakashi," Iruka said, torn between exasperation and amusement. "Breakfast."

"...mmmm..." Eyes still closed, Kakashi nuzzled at the captive arm, and licked at it, and nibbled a little, and started wriggling closer, somehow still keeping the sheets tucked up to his shoulders.

"No, not _me,_" Iruka said with a sigh, trying to tug his arm free with little success. Kakashi kept wriggling his way across the bed, and he seemed to be oozing his way up Iruka's arm to nibble up towards the shoulder. Or toward the cleavage, Iruka realized a moment too late, when Kakashi buried his face there and started nuzzling.

"...All right, now I _know_ you're not asleep!" Iruka planted a palm on Kakashi's face and pushed. "Breakfast first, before it gets cold."

"First?" Kakashi echoed brightly, no sleep-fuzziness at all. "Meaning that the more interesting parts come second, third, and...?"

Blushing despite himself, Iruka said, "But you have to eat your breakfast first!"

With a sudden whirlwind of blankets, Kakashi was sitting there quite properly on the edge of the futon. "Why didn't you say so sooner?"

With a sigh blended of exasperation and affection, Iruka leaned over and kissed Kakashi's cheek. "Happy birthday, love."

"It's certainly shaping up that way, yes," Kakashi replied, with his best cheerfully lecherous grin.

* * *

Downstairs, Sakura walked sleepily into the kitchen and stopped short at the expression on Naruto's face. She took a couple hesitant steps backwards, then turned and bolted for the door; not quite fast enough, though. 

"_SAKURA-CHAN!_ We've got a super special mission from Iruka-sensei and you've _GOT_ to help! Iruka-sensei said so!"

Struggling to pry the orange leech off her arm, Sakura leaned an elbow into his face and said, "What are you on about this time?"

"Iruka-sensei was all busy cooking -- urgh -- _eggplant miso_ so he-I-mean-_she_ didn't have time to get a birthday cake for Kakashi-sensei so we've gotta go to the bookstore and get a cookbook and some ingredients and we gotta get Sasuke in on it too 'cause he'll--"

Those were the magic words; Sakura immediately stopped prying and floated off into her Sasuke-dreamland. "That's right! We've got to get Sasuke in on it so I can impress him with how magnificently I can cook! Which means we've got to get exactly the _right_ cookbook -- so what are we doing standing around here? Come on, move it!"

"You know, that kinda wasn't how I figured on the conversation going, somehow," Naruto said, scratching his head.

"What do you care? I'm baking the cake for Iruka-sensei's 'mission,' right? Come on, come on, we've got to get Sasuke-kun too--"

"But Iruka-sensei made breakfast."

Sakura blinked over at the pot. "...And it's _not_ ramen?"

"No! It's _eggplant!_"

Sakura blinked at her bowl and shrugged. "Well, at least it's not ramen. And we need energy to go shopping. Eat your breakfast."

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto wailed.

Ignoring him, she picked up her bowl and gulped down the contents in ten seconds. She scarfed down her rice and fish, picked up Sasuke's soup and rice and fish, and said, "Stay here, I'm going to serve Sasuke-kun breakfast."

Naruto's face crinkled up. "But... but... it's _eggplant..._ but he deserves it... but it's Sakura-chan... but...!"

While he was debating whether or not to rescue Sasuke from the horrors of eggplant miso, Sakura walked out of the kitchen and kicked the door closed behind herself, heading for the boys' makeshift bedroom and trilling, "Sasuke-kun! I've got your breakfast!"

* * *

When the children left for the bookstore, Naruto shut the door loudly enough to rattle the windows; Kakashi immediately put down the fish he'd been picking at, and _grinned_ at Iruka. 

"Er..."

"It's my birthday, remember?" Kakashi purred, and slunk closer. "And I ate breakfast and everything. And you're looking like a tantalizing midmorning snack."

"Um. --We should at least lock the door first..."

Kakashi pulled out a kunai and flung it at the door without even looking. The kunai thunked into the door and effectively nailed it into the frame. "Good enough?"

Feeling his face burn, Iruka nodded, and tried to keep his voice steady. "What do you want most...?"

Kakashi paused in his slinking, and blinked his one visible eye at Iruka. "What do you mean?"

"I'm... I'm trying to make today perfect for you," Iruka said, hating the way his face burned with shame. "So... um... what do you want most? I mean... I can't imagine how you can want me like this, but you do, and I'm happy, bewildered, grateful -- but if you'd rather have me... um... like I used to be...?"

Kakashi was staring at him. Iruka closed his eyes tightly and plunged ahead. "I mean, I can give you a clone who's... what I used to be. I mean... thin and athletic and, er, _not_ clumsy and fat and... so... whichever you want, whatever you want me to be, I'll give that to you--"

"Are you," Kakashi asked in growing astonishment, "_you,_ actually trying to be _kinky?_"

"No! Not deliberately anyway -- I mean... unless... unless you want that... but otherwise no, I'm just..." Iruka stopped, and shrugged, and looked away. "I want to give you a gift you'll truly take pleasure in. And it's so hard to tell -- you're always teasing, you're always flirting, I don't know which of me you'd really rather have. So I don't know which to give you today. So please, you choose, because I don't know how to guess. I don't know if I want to guess..."

Abruptly, Kakashi's seduction-mode was gone as though he'd turned off a light switch, and he sat beside Iruka and set a gentle fingertip under his lover's chin. "What is this about really?" he murmured.

"This is about you," Iruka said, eyes closed tight against the fear of something he didn't want to see in Kakashi's face. "This is for you. I just don't know how much you've been -- tolerating what I've become, or whether you truly want me like this -- I don't know which you prefer, and I'm almost afraid to ask, but--" Iruka stopped and clamped a hand over his mouth a minute too late. "...oh, _damn_. I'm sorry, Kakashi-- I didn't mean--"

Kakashi was staring at him again, and even without the Sharingan, he was seeing much more than Iruka was comfortable with. "Afraid to ask?" he echoed, strangely gentle. "Because you're afraid of both answers...? Afraid to know that I might prefer you as you were, a strong and graceful man -- or to learn that I might prefer the woman, even growing awkward with the child within... and so there isn't a right answer for me to give, is there? Because each of them will hurt you differently."

"That's _not_ what I meant--"

"It's not what you meant to say, certainly," Kakashi agreed. "But I think it's exactly what you meant. Can you look me in the eye and tell me I'm wrong?"

"...I'm sorry," Iruka murmured. "I'm -- I shouldn't have even started talking. Please. Just tell me who you'd want and I'll be that person for you today--"

But Kakashi shook his head, and bent and brushed a kiss against Iruka's cheek -- and then he said, "Make some clones. Several of them."

Iruka gawked at him, feeling his face turn scarlet. "You... you can't _possibly_ mean... can you...?"

Kakashi's eye widened -- and then he laughed aloud. "Now _that_ thought hadn't even occurred to me! Although it would be _quite_ educational-- chakra control through an astoundingly intense collection of distractions...? I wonder..."

_"No!"_ Iruka yelped.

Kakashi chuckled again, and brushed a fingertip over the blush brightening Iruka's face. "Some other time, then. No, love. What I meant was for you to try the ball-and-shell game on me. Make some clones, and shuffle places, and I'll keep my eyes closed. Make yourself and them into whatever you want them to be. Whoever you want to let me choose between. And I won't use Sharingan. And I'll choose that way. All right?" He pulled his headband down over both eyes and turned away.

Iruka drew a shaking breath, and began shaping seals with his hands. The man he'd been a year ago, sturdy and solid and slender; and the sort of woman he imagined Kakashi would like, the sort of woman in Kakashi's books, slender and busty and wide-eyed in lingerie threatening to slip off one creamy shoulder... and who else...? Another man, someone more like Kakashi himself -- a cheerful flirt who would happily dive into Kakashi's perverted schemes with him, rather than hesitating over practicality or embarrassment. And a woman not as far advanced in pregnancy, her belly visibly round and ripening, but not yet so heavy as to be awkward. And he needed to disguise himself as well...

Iruka couldn't make himself slender now; one touch would ruin that illusion. But he could pad his belly and deepen the perception of pregnancy, so that Kakashi had a full range of choices: his Icha-Para heroine, or the more gently rounded mother-to-be, or the great gravid imminence of nine full months.

He nudged the Icha-Para heroine, and she winked at him before she called out, "Open your eyes!"

Kakashi readjusted his headband, and looked around, and said in grinning delight, "You know me far too well. Now this _is_ what I call a happy birthday!"

* * *

"We're looking for _birthday cake _books, not Valentine-chocolate," Sasuke told Sakura with a sigh. 

"...Oh! Silly me, I wonder how that found its way into my hands..." She put the book back hastily, and made a show of turning around to face the baking cookbooks again.

Naruto tugged on Sasuke's sleeve and rolled his eyes ostentatiously towards the corner and jerked his head that way a few times just to make sure the point got across.

Sasuke sighed again, and went where bidden, and only when they were safely out of Sakura's earshot did he bother to actually speak. "You know you've got the subtlety of a brick to the head, moron."

"Shut up! Anyway, the point is, we've got to get Kakashi-sensei a birthday present too, right?"

Taking that as agreement, Naruto said, "You know how much he loves those pervert books. And we're both too young to buy 'em. So here's the plan. I go and light some toilet paper in the bathroom sink and pull the fire alarm and then I stick some money in the cash register while the bookseller guy's not looking because he's putting out the fire in the bathroom, and you grab the book and run away through the fire escape!"

"_That's_ the plan?"

"It's better than _me_ being the one who has to not get noticed, isn't it?" Naruto pointed out sourly.

"I don't even want to _touch_ one of those books. Who knows what the people who were reading them were doing..."

"But think about the mission! The mission!"

"This is _your_ 'mission,' moron. I've got a better present in mind anyway."

"A better present for Kakashi-sensei than _Icha Icha Paradise?!_"

"You heard me." Sasuke brushed past, heading toward the front of the shop where Sakura was checking out.

Stymied, Naruto dashed for the hentai manga section, then tried to salvage what he could of the plan. He wrapped a smoke bomb in a couple of bills, picked up the Icha Icha Paradise CD special (with the first-edition making-of DVD included), and whistled sharply.

"Oi! Bastard! Think fast!"

Sasuke put his hands up by reflex, just in time for the speeding CD case to thump into his palms. Two seconds later, the smoke bomb slammed into the wall behind the shopkeeper's head and burst into clouds of variegated smoke and dust. Giggling like mad, Naruto leapt over three bookshelves and dove out the fire escape door, setting off the alarm in the process.

Gauging by the howls of outrage coming from behind, Naruto's blazing orange jumpsuit hadn't gone unnoticed. _Ah, just like the old days,_ Naruto thought happily, and set off to carve as great a swathe of vandalism and mischief as he could manage. _Got to give Sasuke the chance to escape with the mission target, after all!_

Naruto shot a look over his shoulder.

...wait, was that _Sasuke_ back there chasing him...? And Sakura too?

The kunai that whizzed past his left ear pretty much confirmed that guess. Naruto gulped hard and started running faster. _On the bright side -- at least we're getting ourselves and the mission target out of range... that's good, right? And they're putting up a good show for the book-seller dude?_

He dodged another kunai hastily, and thought, _A really, _really_ good show..._

* * *

Somehow, Iruka's offer of Kakashi's choice of lovers had turned into the world's most surreal nonalcoholic cocktail party. Other-Iruka was helpfully offering the second-trimester mother to be a backrub and advice on choosing schools, both of them 'sipping' at the leftover tea from breakfast; the Icha-Para heroine was busily flirting away with both Kakashi and the flirtatious extrovert, both of whom were flirting back as naturally as breathing. 

Iruka never had been much good at cocktail parties, particularly flirt-filled ones. A little awkwardly, he wandered toward other-Iruka and the mother-to-be, because they looked less intimidating. Other-Iruka smiled a welcome and patted a seat on the futon; he'd turned his hands to rubbing at Iruka's shoulders before they'd even 'introduced' themselves. _Well, this is one useful thing I've learned about clones this morning,_ Iruka thought. _There's enough of me in them that they know when and where my back hurts before I even tell them..._

Other-Iruka's voice sounded just like Iruka's own, and it was a little eerie to hear your own voice saying things you weren't saying yourself. Other-Iruka was friendly and sympathetic, and very good at backrubs, and Iruka made a mental note to remember how to create this particular clone, because nine months of weight dragged painfully at his lower back and talented hands were a welcome relief whether or not they were technically human hands.

He wished Kakashi would just make his choice, so that he wouldn't have to watch him deciding.

Kakashi glanced over at the other group, and sheer mischief glinted in his visible eye -- and then there was a startled-looking 'Kakashi' trying gamely to catch up with the flirts' conversation, and the mother-to-be tied her hair-scarf over a mismatched eye and settled down on the futon beside the Irukas, both of whom were blinking in bemused unison.

"Kawarimi?" other-Iruka asked. "Why bother?"

"They're both interested in men, so she needed to look like a man to keep their interest," the 'mother-to-be' said, looking with interest down at her own breasts. "Now _that's_ a sight I don't see every day..."

"Pervert," the Irukas said in unison, and then looked at each other, and the 'mother-to-be' snickered.

"Still, this is interesting. I have cleavage! I'm not used to having cleavage. --Or this too, of course," she added, patting the swell of her belly. "There's nothing inside a kawarimi-swap, though. I don't feel a baby moving. I was curious about what it felt like from inside... ah well. I'm _not_ curious enough to find out the other way!" She grinned, and stretched, and with a faint puff of chakra-smoke, it was Kakashi sitting beside them again. "So how do I decide between the two of you?"

Both Irukas looked at each other, and then at Kakashi. "Between us?" Iruka asked carefully.

"You looked like you were enjoying the company," other-Iruka said, just as carefully.

"A gift for making small talk has nothing to do with desire," Kakashi replied, smiling at them both. "You two are the tricky ones, though. Temptation in two gorgeous packages; what's a self-respecting pervert to do? Such a dilemma... I don't suppose I can taste-test, can I?"

Both of the Irukas choked, wheezed, and started spluttering: "You -- you perverted --" "No! Not in _public_--" "--not that this is public exactly--" "--but it feels like it--" "--yes, it does! So that means _no_--"

"I meant a kiss, of course," Kakashi said, fascinated. "What did you think I meant?"

The Irukas looked at each other, and other-Iruka curled up in a ball and hid his face in his knees muttering something incoherent, and Iruka hid in the back of other-Iruka's shirt because curling up in a ball wasn't an option with a taut round bellyful of baby in the way.

"...You are a very, _very_ bad man."

"Me? I'm not the one who thought of it!"

Other-Iruka curled up smaller, almost whimpering. Kakashi chuckled and patted his shoulder commiseratingly.

"There there. Let daddy kiss and make it all better."

Other-Iruka glanced up at Iruka, who shrugged helplessly: "It _is_ his birthday..."

Other-Iruka's voice caught with a far too familiar husky, half-breathless hitch as he said, "All right."

Iruka looked away despite himself, to try to give them some semblance of privacy, and to not have to watch Kakashi kissing someone who was and yet wasn't himself.

Other-Iruka made another too-familiar little sound of bliss interrupted when Kakashi pulled away, a little catch of breath as if to protest, followed by a small almost-soundless sigh; Iruka was briefly furious with himself for making sounds like that, so vulnerable and so full of need.

_I have to let him choose freely, dammit; this is the day for his fantasies, so if he doesn't choose me -- one of me -- it has to be all right, just for today; making _sounds_ like that isn't fair to the rest of us..._

_it isn't fair to me; it's just a clone, it shouldn't be able to... to..._

_but then that's the point of clones: to be able to fool people, or at least people who aren't using Sharingan... but still...!_

Kakashi licked his lips, as though savoring the last bite of a sweet dessert; then he smiled down at Iruka and curved a gentle hand to the arch of his throat, fingertips lingering at the pulse-point. "Your turn...?" He guided Iruka's chin up gently, and bent to brush their lips together.

...and if Kakashi had kissed the clone like _this_, suddenly Iruka couldn't blame it for that little desperate whimper. His lips were warm and passionate and far too skillful, tasting and exploring, and despite the clones and the background chatter and all of it, time stood still as Kakashi's lips claimed Iruka's and marked them as his own.

Iruka couldn't tell if he'd made a sound when Kakashi pulled away or not; he was too busy gasping for breath, his heart pounding fiercely in his throat, against the light, knowing touch of Kakashi's fingertips. Kakashi smiled at him then, the smile of a cat with a sunbeam and a full bowl of sweet fresh cream, and he bent close and kissed Iruka's cheek again.

"I choose you. You can let the clones go now," he murmured into Iruka's ear, and followed it with another kiss; for a moment Iruka wanted nothing more than to melt into Kakashi's lips, but then he pulled back sharply.

"No -- that wasn't the point, the point wasn't some kind of test for you to find me among the clones without Sharingan--"

"Wasn't it?" Kakashi asked, still smiling.

"I wouldn't do that to you! I _meant_ what I offered, damn it-- this wasn't supposed to be a test! I wanted today to be for _you--_"

"Easy," Kakashi murmured, one hand finding the knot of tension between Iruka's shoulderblades and kneading lightly. "I know you meant it when you offered. I mean this too. I choose _you._ I don't care what shape the body you're wearing takes. I don't want an illusion that speaks the words you think I want to hear, in a body that isn't yours -- a body whose heartbeat doesn't quicken with my kiss... I'm arrogant that way. You keep trying to offer me my own selfish pleasure, without considering yours -- but, love, it doesn't work that way, because I'm a smug cocky bastard who takes his own pleasure in making you blush and squirm and wriggle... and in making you whisper my name in your passion. I want it to be _you._ _That's _the part that matters to me -- regardless of whether you're flexible enough to tie in knots or whether you've grown so awkward you need help putting on your own socks and shoes. I don't care _what_ you are-- just _who._ All right?"

Iruka stared up at him, mutely stunned.

"And for your information, the only reason I was hesitating between the two of you is that I wondered whether you might be projecting enough of a genjutsu to make me see you as someone who could hug your own knees at the moment," Kakashi added wryly. "One kiss was all it took to figure that one out. Not that your clone's a _bad_ kisser or anything -- just that he's not you."

Still unable to speak around the knot in his throat, Iruka slipped both arms around Kakashi's shoulders and clung tightly, face buried in his lover's chest.

"Of course," Kakashi said far too brightly, "if you feel like playing dress-up, I've got a _long_ list of fantasies to contribute to that cause -- since it'll be you inside the clothes and all. We can play obstetrician -- I'd be the doctor, of course. Or 'schoolgirl who fell in love with her teacher and got pregnant and ran away and now they're having their adoring and passionate reunion' -- that's Icha Icha Paradise #16 in a nutshell basically, I can show you pictures for reference--"

When Kakashi's shirt tore from the force of the grip Iruka had on the fabric, Kakashi shut up.

...Not for long enough, though.

"Or if you want to just tear my clothes off and throw me down and ravish me, I can go for that too-- there's all _kinds_ of Icha Icha reference material we can go over for inspirational purposes--"

"...will-not-kill-him-on-his-birthday will-not-kill-him-on-his-birthday will-_not_-kill-him-on-his-_birthday_...!"

"Well, that's nice to know," Kakashi replied, straight-faced.

Iruka took a deep breath and blew it all out, and lifted his head to look Kakashi in the eye, and said, "Pick one."

"...eh?"

"Pick one and I'll do it. For you. Because you'd enjoy it. --Mind you, I said _one._"

Kakashi's grin alone should have been arrested for indecent exposure.

* * *

When Sasuke finally nailed the sleeves of Naruto's orange jumpsuit to a wall with three well-aimed kunai, the blonde terror grinned up at his rival a little nervously. "Good job distracting them," Naruto offered. "Where's the CD?" 

From behind Sasuke, the bookseller said, "In _my_ hands, brat. Where it should have stayed to begin with. Your friends here tell me they had nothing to do with your plan to shoplift adult materials from my store--"

"It wasn't shoplifting! I paid!" Naruto protested.

"--So it _was_ your idea?"

"Well, yeah! 'Cause Kakashi-s-san likes 'em but Iruka-sensei would curl up and die of shame if I went and asked h-her to buy him something kinky as a birthday present from me, and I don't know anybody else that old around here, so this was the best idea I could think of..."

One of Sasuke's eyebrows was twitching dangerously. It had an uncanny mirror in the bookseller's nervous tic.

"You really expect me to believe you weren't 'acquiring' those adult materials for yourself?" the bookseller growled.

Naruto's jaw dropped open. "Say _what?_" he demanded, utterly outraged.

* * *

Sitting in a pile of pillows in a sunbeam with Iruka in his lap, three questionable 'reference' books in easy reach, a fourth in hand, and the other hand cupped under Iruka's top to rub and stroke contentedly, Kakashi sighed in pure bliss as he flipped another page with his thumb. 

"...So then Kaori-chan and Kitazawa-sensei spend a couple of pages talking and he tells her not to feel so self-conscious about her body, because she's ripening with the most precious fruit in the world: the fruit of their love. --Which was obviously a good line to use, because two pages later they're in bed!" he added cheerfully, flipping a couple more pages to point. "And they're pretty creative about working around her bulge, too. See? ...Hey, would it work on you if I tried that line?"

Iruka, meanwhile, was torn between covering his eyes and peeking through his fingers in appalled incredulity. "...I don't think that's physiologically possible. I mean... hip joints just aren't _meant_ to... --and besides, she couldn't be that flexible, not that late..."

"Actually, it's all got to do with back support," Kakashi said sagely, and reached for _Hot Sex and Hot Mamas,_ flipping to a page he'd helpfully bookmarked in the third trimester section. "A couple pillows there and there, tilting your hips like that, and then just tuck your knees and brace your feet against the headboard or something and--"

--and someone was pounding on their front door; Iruka scrambled to his feet hastily, tugging the clothing back into place. "I should go answer that!" he said, and tried to open the door, and then swore under his breath at the kunai nailing the door shut.

"Oh well, too bad. Looks like we're not going anywhere," Kakashi said with a lazy grin, curving himself against Iruka's back and letting both hands wander up beneath the loose maternity top.

"But-- it could be-- s-something..." Iruka gulped hard, because one of Kakashi's hands was wandering up and the other was wandering down, and it took a great deal of concentration to finish the sentence: "It could be something important!"

"More important than my birthday?" Kakashi asked pitifully.

Iruka froze, and then turned in his arms and hugged him. "That's not what I mean! I just mean what if something happened to the kids--"

"Nothing happened to the kids."

"--or the kids happened to someone," Iruka continued determinedly. "And remember: that includes _Naruto._"

After a moment's wavering, during which the pounding on the front door redoubled in urgency, Kakashi sighed and reached over and pulled the kunai out of the doorframe. "We're on page 161 in volume 16," he said quite soberly. "I expect us to pick up where we left off."

"Yes, dear," Iruka said wryly, and tilted his chin up to brush a kiss against Kakashi's cheek before heading for the stairs.

* * *

"...I'm sure you're just as appalled as I am, Iruka-sensei, and of course I don't mean to call into question your suitability to instruct our children," the bookseller said -- except that his tone of voice said the exact opposite; only the fact that Iruka had his hand firmly against the back of Naruto's head to keep the boy bowing his apology prevented bloodshed at that point. Oblivious to the fact that he was risking his life at the hands of one of the most impulsive teenaged ninjas ever born, the bookseller continued obsequiously, "Still, the fact that one of your charges was responsible for stealing adult materials from my bookshop... it's completely unsupportable." 

"Believe me, I understand," Iruka said, bowing as deeply as he could manage and leaning on the back of Naruto's head to keep his balance. "I'm so, _so_ sorry."

Naruto made a desperate little squawking sound, but with his chin tucked under and his lungs shoved up into his throat, he couldn't manage much more than that.

"Boys will be boys, I know. But both as the guardian of this one and the instructor of many more, you should be more careful to make sure you teach children their proper place."

"I know," Iruka said again, bowed as close to double as he could. "I'm sorry. Trust me -- it _won't_ happen again. --_Will_ it, Naruto."

The bookseller opened his mouth to make another condescending comment when something about the tone of the mild-mannered schoolteacher's voice sank in. Something that put him more in mind of a crime boss about to shed blood than of a children's teacher about to pass around milk and cookies. He closed his mouth hastily and said, "As long as we're clear on that then," and turned around and not-_quite_ ran for his life.

Iruka only let go of the back of Naruto's head when the bookseller rounded the corner at the end of the block. Naruto straightened up and brushed off his jacket irritably, scowling like a little thundercloud.

"I'm gonna kick his ass! He had no business blaming _Iruka-sensei­!_" the boy complained to the room at large. "Iruka-sensei, you shouldn't have apologized to him, you should've let me kick his ass for talking to you like you're responsible for me getting in trouble or something! I do that just fine all by myself--"

Then he noticed the others' eyes, and stopped short, and gulped. But he made a valiant attempt at recovery nevertheless: "Well, it's true, isn't it? It's not Iruka-sensei's fault I wanted to get Kakashi-sensei a birthday present he'd like! Let me go kick his ass-- I _paid_ for it and everything and he _took it back!_ That's illegal or something!"

"Illegal?" Sasuke murmured, with a brow quirked. "Coming from the idiot who was going to go light a fire in the bathroom sink to cause a distraction to let you smuggle X-rated material out of that bookstore? How illegal is that?"

"But I _paid_ for it! And it wasn't going to be for _me_, it was going to be for Kakashi-sensei! It's not my fault I'm not old enough! I _couldn't_ tell Kakashi-sensei to go buy himself his birthday present from me with his eyes closed or something, now could I?" Naruto looked up at Iruka for support, and then his eyes went very wide and he sat down on the floor with a thump. In a very, very tiny voice, he said, "You're mad, aren't you, Iruka-sensei?"

"You _did_ interrupt a _very_ pleasant morning we were having," Kakashi said, and slipped an arm about Iruka's enlarging waist in order to stroke and rub. "Practice your breathing, love. Slow deep breaths, for the baby's sake..."

"And this is _your_ fault as much as his, you pervert!" Iruka exploded. "He knows you far too well -- don't even _pretend_ you wouldn't have been delighted if he'd actually pulled it off!"

"Of course I would have been," Kakashi replied, all sober and righteous indignation. "And I'm quite disappointed that he _didn't_. A ninja should have better planning, better stealth, and most importantly of all, better _success_ than that--"

"And DON'T you try to pass this off as a failed training exercise either! He's _trying to sneak pornography out of a bookstore because YOU had to go and inspire him!_"

"But aren't we here to be role models in their lives?" Kakashi settled a palm to his heart and sighed angelically. "To think I've touched my students' lives so -- it makes a teacher's heart overflow..."

"To think that you've _warped_ your students' lives so--"

Sasuke was very, very slowly edging toward the door. He might have made it unnoticed, but Sakura's brighter hair passed through the sunbeam as she edged toward Sasuke, and Iruka stopped in his tirade to Kakashi in order to fix his best teacher-glare on the pair of them as well.

"And you two! You should either have stopped him or helped him -- _preferably_ stopped him!"

"I tried," Sasuke muttered, and bowed to Iruka in apology. "Obviously, I didn't try hard enough. I'm sorry, Iruka-sensei."

Kakashi said far too ingenuously, "Actually, I think they should have chosen to work together. It's all about teamwork--"

"No," Iruka retorted, "it's all about you getting your hands on your latest pornographic fixation!"

Sakura made a little 'eep!' and sprinted for the door; Sasuke was hot on her heels.

"Well, teamwork and pornography, two birds and one stone, what can I say?" Kakashi shrugged.

Naruto made a little hiccuping sound, and Iruka turned to glare at him, about to deliver a tonguelashing if he thought anything about the situation needed laughing at-- until he realized the boy's blue eyes were brimming with tears, and his face was screwed up into little-old-man wrinkles trying not to bawl out loud.

"I'm... I'm s-s-_sorry...!"_ the boy choked, scrubbing at his face with the back of a sleeve. "I wanted to get Kakashi-sensei a birthday present he'd _like... _but... but... --that cranky bastard shouldn't have yelled at Iruka-sensei and... and now you're mad and it's all my fault...!"

Iruka gave a great sigh and settled himself beside Naruto on the floor, looking at the boy soberly. "Do you understand why that was wrong?"

"Yeah--!" He sniffled and scrubbed at his face again, scowling fiercely. "If I hadn't gotten caught, the lousy rat bastard wouldn't have come and yelled at you for stuff I did, 'cause that just wasn't right! It's not your fault I'm a screw-up! He had no business--"

Iruka put his hand over Naruto's mouth; the other hand was rubbing at his temples, trying to fight off an incipient stress-headache. "No, Naruto," Iruka said carefully. "He did have every right to come and make me apologize for your actions. I was your teacher; I helped raise you. What you do is a reflection of what I taught you to do, and not to do. What you do is a reflection of what this child may become, as well. And what you do reflects on my skill as a teacher, as a parent, and as a person. So it was his right to demand an apology from me."

Despite his best efforts, the tears spilled down the boy's face. "I'm _sorry_!"

"So am I," Iruka replied tiredly. "I'm sorry I've failed you as a teacher, and as a foster parent of sorts. I thought I'd taught you better than this, you see."

"You haven't failed anything!" Naruto said hotly. "_I'm_ the one who screwed up and got caught!"

"Your mistake wasn't in getting caught," Iruka said. "Your mistake was in trying it in the first place."

"But..." Naruto stopped, and gulped, and nodded. "...Yeah. If I hadn't tried it I couldn't have gotten caught."

"That's not what I mean," Iruka said. "You could have gotten Kakashi a present that _you_ were allowed to give. Or you could have asked me for help."

Naruto gave Iruka a _look._ "No I couldn't."

Iruka sighed. "You don't trust me enough to ask my help...?"

"That's not it! I trust you -- it's just -- it's _you,_ Iruka-sensei, I couldn't ask _you_ to go into the kinky-pervert section of a bookstore! You're too _respectable!_"

Kakashi made a peculiar sound, clamped a hand over his mouth, and twisted away, shaking with half-muffled hilarity.

Naruto glared at him and tried again to explain. "Kakashi-sensei's not polite or respectable or anything, and neither am I, so it doesn't matter if _we_ do it, nobody'd be surprised; but you're just too... I don't know, too innocent or something..."

Iruka could feel the corner of his mouth twitching despite himself, and put a hand over his mouth to try to hide what he could. Unfortunately, Naruto misinterpreted completely.

"I'm _sorry_, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings or anything!" Awkwardly, Naruto reached up and patted Iruka's shoulder, and said in a tone of great sympathy, "I'm sure you can be plenty non-respectable-ish if you work on it some--"

"The boy _has_ got bright ideas," Kakashi managed, and then went back to fighting off the need to roll on the floor in hysterics.

"Naruto," Iruka said, fighting hard to keep the treacherous laughter out of his voice. "Naruto-kun. _Look_ at me." Iruka gestured down at the body he was living in, gently touching the swell of a child-ripening belly. "You _do_ understand how children begin, don't you? I'm really not as ignorant of these things as you think I am."

"I don't think you're ignorant!" Naruto protested. "It's just -- I _know_ you're not a kinky pervert like Kakashi-sensei! There's a difference!"

Kakashi lost his grip then; he toppled over sideways and hit the floor with a thump, absolutely convulsed with howls of glee.

_And the hell of it is I can't even tell him he's wrong,_ Iruka thought, rubbing the bridge of his nose to try to keep fighting the losing battle against that tension-headache. _The entire problem is that he knows us both too well -- and he knows Kakashi _would_ be delighted by a successful mini-ninja stealth operation in the name of Icha Icha Paradise at least as much as by the actual book itself..._

_And I CAN'T just tell him 'all right, maybe the problem was just the getting caught after all.' I have to at least _try_ to provide a balanced role model to contrast with Kakashi's complete lack of normal human inhibitions..._

Iruka sighed deeply again, and reached over to rumple Naruto's hair a little. "Tell you what," he said. "Let's go find your present for Kakashi together. Just the two of us, since it won't be a surprise if he comes along."

Naruto's jaw dropped open. "...You'd actually let people see you _buy_ the Icha Icha Paradise CD?"

"That won't work anymore," Iruka said, hoping his face wasn't burning too visibly at the mere thought. "We need to find him something that would be a _surprise_ now."

Kakashi said, "What about page 161?"

"I'm still holding you more than half responsible for Naruto coming up with this insane scheme to begin with," Iruka warned.

Kakashi put on the puppy eyes.

"_Later._"

A trembling lower lip joined the puppy eyes.

"Look, do _you_ want to get re-interrupted the next time he has a brainstorm about illegal ways to acquire the perfect adult-rated birthday present to give you?" Iruka asked under his breath.

After a moment, Kakashi heaved a morose sigh and said, "I hate it when you're right like that."

* * *

(breaking it into two bits just because of length...) 


	2. Part 2: Calendar no jutsu

**Tanjoubi no jutsu part 2**  
(yes, it's supposed to be all a one-shot, it was just too long to post in one chapter...)

* * *

On their way into the village, Naruto shuffled along beside Iruka, feet dragging the ground, shoulders slumped, hands shoved in his pockets, scowling like a little thundercloud. He heaved an enormous sigh, and Iruka stopped walking.

"It's not the end of the world, you know," Iruka said ruefully.

"But I thought I had it all figured out! And now nothing went right and you're all mad at me and Kakashi-sensei won't get his present and..." Naruto sighed again. "...And that rat bastard had _no_ right yelling at you, it was _my_ fault... do they always do that? Is that what happens when you've got a real family? I mean, in Konoha everybody knows I'm the freak, there's no point at yelling at anybody else 'cause I'm the demon and there's no fixing a demon and stuff -- but when you've got a real family, do people make your parents feel bad when you do stuff wrong...? 'Cause that stinks! Nobody ever told me you'd get in trouble because I'm a brat... I'm so sorry...!"

Iruka sighed too, and put an arm around Naruto's shoulders, and then suddenly Naruto was clinging to him with his face buried against Iruka's side like a scolded puppy. Iruka stroked the sunny blonde thatch of the boy's hair and tried to find the right words.

"Yes," he said eventually, "this is what happens when you've got a real family. Because you _do_ have a real family, Naruto: you've got us, in everything but blood."

Naruto couldn't find the words to reply, but his arms tightened fiercely about Iruka's waist.

"Gently," Iruka reminded him, a bit rueful, shifting in the boy's arms so that the pressure wasn't quite so uncomfortable against the snug swollen fullness in front.

"...'m sorry...!" He scrubbed the back of a hand across his cheeks, and mumbled, "Why do I screw up _everything?_"

"Not everything," Iruka said, rumpling his hair a little. "You had -- ah -- very good intentions when you were thinking of Kakashi's present. The problem was the execution."

"But why _couldn't_ I just get it for him? It's not fair... I don't know what else I could've done!"

Despite himself, Iruka sighed. "Didn't it ever occur to you to buy a gift certificate and suggest he pick up that CD himself?"

Naruto's jaw dropped open. Then he fell over flat on his back in the middle of the street, vaguely twitching all over.

"Apparently not," Iruka murmured, the corners of his lips twitching again.

"I'M SUCH A MORON!" Naruto howled at the top of his lungs.

* * *

Four bowls of ramen later, Iruka was still trying to placate the gloomy orange ramen disposal unit sitting beside him.

"...bu' n'jas don' _think_ o' gf'crtffkats..." (gulp) "they think of like _kicking_ things and _throwing_ things and _blowing things up_ and-- and--"

"Ninjas can think of gift certificates if they want to," Iruka said. "Remember the lessons on stealth? It's much quieter to buy a gift certificate than to burn down the restroom and throw smoke bombs at the shop owner."

"But gift certificates haven't got any... I don't know... _coolness_ factor."

"Stealth, remember? Blending in? Not getting noticed?"

Naruto heaved a huge sigh and looked at Iruka's half-finished bowl of ramen. Wryly, Iruka pushed it over to him.

"...Iruka-sensei, you rock." Naruto set about inhaling his fourth-and-a-half bowl of ramen for the day. "Can I have another?"

Iruka blinked in astonishment.

"Kakashi-sensei's probably going to want _zucchini_ or something for lunch _and_ dinner," Naruto said. "I gotta get actual food while I still can."

"After we find his present, all right?" Iruka temporized. "We'll get you a bowl to take home, to 'survive' on this evening."

"Oh yeah... I gotta think of something that _isn't_ Icha Icha Paradise..."

Despite himself, Iruka shivered a little. "Please don't say it that way," he said. "You're too young for Icha Icha Paradise to be the only thing on your mind!"

"I'm not that young!" Naruto protested, and hopped down from the ramen cart's stool. "Come on, I've got another idea."

Their first stop was a camera store, where Naruto bought a disposable camera; he still wouldn't explain anything, though, and each step they took had Iruka worrying a bit more.

The brief detour through an alley was even more confusing, but at least Naruto wasn't actively scrounging through the trash -- instead, he took the chance to shape seals and transform himself into his sexy-no-jutsu form. The orange jumpsuit stretched oddly over his female form's, er, assets; 'Naruko' grinned at Iruka's expression and said "Come on!"

When they stopped in front of a lingerie store, Iruka's heart sank into his stomach and settled there.

'Naruko' said proudly, "Here we are! Okay, we just have to find some things that fit you and--"

"What _precisely_ are we doing here?" Iruka asked, hoping he wasn't blushing as much as it felt like.

"Well, you're a girl, so we need to get you lingerie, so I needed to be a girl so I could come in with you and bring the camera, so here we are--"

"Wait," Iruka said, rubbing his temples. "Further back than that. Why are we in front of a lingerie store?"

"Further back... well, it's all 'cause Kakashi-sensei's a kinky pervert, of course!"

Somehow, Iruka resisted the urge to knock his head against the wall until it stopped hurting. "All right, forward again. I hope I'm missing the connection between Kakashi's taste in literature and us standing in front of a lingerie store with a camera in your hands. At least, I'd _better_ be missing the connection, because if I'm _not_ missing the connection, you're in a _lot_ of trouble starting in about ten seconds--"

Very patiently, 'Naruko' said, "It's simple. We go in and find you some things that fit over your tummy and I take a lot of pictures and we go and get them developed at one of those hour places and we turn 'em into a calendar and--"

"_We WHAT?! --NO!!!_"

"But they won't let me in with a camera if I'm a guy--"

The street sign wasn't attached to its pole _nearly_ firmly enough, Iruka decided, as he ripped it off and began to beat 'Naruko' over the head with it until 'she' poofed back into Naruto's own body and took off running for the alley again.

Iruka followed at a determined waddle, still gripping the street sign. "Naruto? Naruto, get back here so we can _finish this conversation!_"

From the nearest rooftop, Naruto hollered down, "Only if we do more talking and less beating me up!"

"That _entirely_ depends on if you still plan on personally taking obscene pictures of _me_, female and pregnant, _and then printing copies_!" Iruka growled, glancing around to see if anyone was in earshot. "_What_ is wrong with your head today?"

Naruto hopped down to the fire escape and sat with his heels dangling over the edge about ten feet above Iruka's current strike range. "Look," he said. "I taught you sexy-no-jutsu, right? So I figure you know I know how girl bodies look! So I thought you wouldn't mind if it was me taking the pictures 'cause you'd know I wasn't taking them for me to personally be a hentai pervert at you--"

"The _problem_ is _taking the pictures at all!_"

"But wouldn't you rather I give him a kinky calendar that has _you_ in it than a kinky calendar that has somebody else in it? 'Cause then he'll be looking at you!"

"I'd _rather_ you _didn't_ give him a kinky calendar at all--!" Iruka stopped, frustrated to the verge of hair-tearing, because the boy looked like he'd just been kicked. "Naruto--"

"The two things Kakashi-sensei loves best in the whole world are you and Icha Icha Paradise," Naruto said, lower lip trembling. "And I can't give him Icha Icha Paradise now. And I _thought_ you'd be happier if he was looking at _you_ like that, like you're the most gorgeous person ever... I thought this was a _better_ idea than Icha Icha Paradise 'cause it might make you _both_ happy...! Why doesn't it make you happy too...?"

"I--"

Iruka stopped, and looked around again, and then refocused his chakra into his feet and carefully walked up the wall to sit beside Naruto on the edge of the fire escape.

"I'm having a _very_ hard time with two thoughts right now," he managed. "One is the thought that you want to take perverted pictures of me. That's just... terrifying."

"They don't have to be perverted," Naruto mumbled. "Okay, maybe a _little_ perverted, 'cause it's for Kakashi-sensei-- but I'd let you pick out the clothes and stuff, that's only fair--"

"The other problem is the thought that _anyone_ would _want_ to look at me like this," Iruka said, gesturing helplessly at the child-distorted body. "Honestly, Naruto -- do you _really_ think _anybody_ would find this attractive? You keep talking about how fat I've gotten..."

"How do I know what Kakashi-sensei thinks? He's a pervert, after all."

_And that makes me feel even better about myself,_ Iruka thought sourly, digging a hand through his hair. _So the only excuse Kakashi has for enjoying my body is the fact that he's perverted enough to find freakish things desirable? Naruto, I love you, but how do I explain that you _need_ to shut up before I have to kill you?_

"Look," Naruto said, as though he were the one who needed patience in the conversation. "I don't know much about how Kakashi-sensei thinks, but I know how he looks at you. Sometimes when he thinks we're not watching, he looks at you like you're the most wonderful, awesome, precious thing in the whole wide world. And the look on his face when he sneaks up behind you and scares you to bits so he has to catch you before you fall over and he gets to put his arms around you..."

Naruto paused for a moment, rubbing his chin, and then sighed. "Okay, I gotta admit, at _least_ half of that look is him getting way too many kicks out of pulling pranks on anybody, and you _know_ I'm saying that as an expert on pranks," he amended. "But the rest of it is that he loves having a reason to touch you -- he loves having a reason to touch the baby in particular -- it's just he's gotta try to be all macho and not admit he's being mushy whenever Sasuke-that-bastard and I might see him. It's a guy thing."

"I _do_ understand guy things, Naruto," Iruka said, one eyebrow twitching.

"Yeah, but you don't understand _macho,"_ the boy said patiently, as though he were the adult explaining to the child. "You don't go around posing and acting all badass and stuff, you just act like yourself and you don't care if you're tougher than the next guy, maybe it's 'cause you're a chuunin instead of a jounin, you haven't got to prove anything to anybody, but anyway... Kakashi-sensei and Sasuke-that-bastard and me, we all do macho. So he needs an _excuse_ when he wants to _not_ do macho."

"Naruto--"

"So making a sexy-lingerie calendar takes care of the macho part," Naruto said desperately. "And the calendar being you takes care of the mushy part. 'Cause then he can look at pictures of you smiling just for him, with the baby in your tummy, and then he can be all mushy and not have to worry about if it's too un-macho or something. See?"

With an enormous sigh, Iruka wrapped an arm around the boy's neck and scruffled knuckles through his hair, then let go and leaned back on his hands to try to ease the near-constant ache in his back. "...I just can't believe I'm _actually_ thinking about this..."

"What would've been really cool is if you'd gone and took pictures every month, so it'd be like a real calendar and stuff," Naruto said a little wistfully. "Like watching the baby grow up, except just not born yet."

Iruka shrugged a little, scratching behind an ear, and managed, "Sorry? The children did trace on the wall, but that's not what you're wanting, is it."

Naruto heaved an enormous sigh, and tipped his head sideways to rest against Iruka's shoulder. After a long quiet moment, he asked, "Iruka-sensei, do you think my mom was ashamed to be having me?"

"..._What?_ No--" Iruka stared down at the blonde head in utter shock. "Naruto, of _course_ she wasn't ashamed to be having you!"

"I keep trying to tell myself that too," the boy said, gazing down at the street and kicking his feet a little. "I mean, _they_ probably didn't know I was going to turn out to have a demon and stuff. So I'm kinda glad they never had to find out. But I just kind of wonder sometimes... if my mom liked me while I was inside her tummy, or if she was ashamed for people to see..."

Iruka buried his face in both hands, shaking all over. "It's not-- that's not why I..." He stopped, and tried again. "I'm _sure_ your mother was never ashamed of you. I'm sure that she was delighted every time she felt you move inside her, that she loved watching you grow. And feeling you kick. And I'm sure she wanted to live for you, to watch you growing up too. It's _not_ the baby that I'm ashamed of. It's myself."

"Why?" Naruto asked, bewildered.

Feeling incredibly stupid, Iruka said, "I'm not sure, actually. I'm just... I feel so clumsy and awkward and..." He shrugged a little, helpless.

"That's just 'cause you're fat," Naruto said matter-of-factly.

"Thank you for the news flash," Iruka said with a groan.

"No, it's _okay_ to be fat when you're having a baby," Naruto said, giving him a look that said _and people call ME dense._ "That's _normal_, Iruka-sensei."

Iruka laughed despite himself. "Well, when you put it like _that_..."

"So will you?" Naruto asked. "I got another idea too! I mean, the baby needs to be the size it is, so you shouldn't mess with the sexy-no-jutsu to make your tummy smaller -- but you remember what you looked like, right? You could make a clone and we could take pictures of the different months that way. It'd be cool! I mean, it's kinda a pre-birthday present for the baby too, like a calendar specially waiting for him to be born."

"Naruto," Iruka said in a half-strangled voice, "I am _not_ letting my child look at a calendar of _me wearing lingerie!_"

Naruto gave him an odd look, then shrugged and said, "So, okay, like, how about a swimsuit calendar? We can go to the pond and splash around and stuff. --And people are _used_ to seeing people in swimsuits, so you can show the baby too--"

"But not swimsuits on _pregnant_ people--"

"Why not?"

Try as he might, Iruka simply couldn't think of a good response to that. "Just... because," he said, rather lamely.

_If he'd grown up in a normal family, he would never have thought to ask things like this... but if he'd grown up in a normal family, he might look at me and sneer, and I don't know if I could bear that from him..._

Sensing an advantage, Naruto pulled out the heavy weaponry: a blubbering bottom lip and enormous blue eyes that _wibbled._ Pitifully. "_Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaase?_"

"Naruto..."

"But it's the only thing I can think of that Kakashi-sensei would like as much as Icha Icha Paradise! He's picky! He doesn't even like _ramen!_ --_And_ I'm not even going to set fire to anyone's shop or anything this time! I'm being _good!_ I really am! _Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaase?_"

With his face hidden in one palm, Iruka said in a very tiny voice, "Not setting fire to the bookseller's shop is _good_, but--"

Naruto _sniffled_.

"Oh, God, I surrender already," Iruka murmured. "But--"

"_Score!_" Naruto crowed.

"_But,_" Iruka said again, more firmly. "This is going to be a _family-friendly_ calendar, understood?"

"Oh, sure, whatever!"

"And I think that means we should have pictures of _all_ of our family in it."

Naruto blinked at him.

"You three should be in it too," Iruka said. "We'll find Sasuke and Sakura and we'll all take pictures by the pond this afternoon. All right?"

Naruto wavered for a minute, and then _something_ obviously occurred to him, because he started chortling. Evilly.

"Suuuuuuuuuuuure!" he said, _far_ too enthusiastically for Iruka's peace of mind. "Yeah, we _gotta_ get Sasuke-that-bastard dragged into this. And Sakura-chan too of course!"

Somehow, the nervous feeling in the pit of Iruka's stomach that had started with the stop in front of the lingerie store hadn't gone away yet.

* * *

Naruto kept chortling all the way through lunch. Unfortunately, this was about the least successful option on the list of "potential ways to keep Kakashi from getting curious and poking at a secret." About half of lunch -- which wasn't ramen specifically because Kakashi was taking a little vengeance for the mysterious and unexplained chortling -- was spent with Naruto and Kakashi poking verbal jabs at each other, Sakura complaining at them both, and Sasuke rolling his eyes quite frequently.

"Trust me," Iruka said, both hands up. "It'll be all right. We just have a little birthday errand to run this afternoon, and I need their help."

"Oh, _you_ I trust," Kakashi replied, eye narrowed. "_Him_ I don't."

"Blehhhhhh!" Naruto pulled down an eyelid and stuck out his tongue at Kakashi, then jumped out of his chair and ran for the stairs, calling over a shoulder,. "Iruka-sensei, I'll, er, Meet You There. You know where. So I'm not saying it out loud. So there!"

"Moron," Sasuke said. "What do you need, Iruka-sensei?"

"I have a particular mission for the whole of team seven," Iruka said, trying not to grin too much.

"Well, lucky me, I'm the squad leader--" Kakashi began.

"Including you, of course," Iruka replied without missing a beat. "Your mission is to stay right here and make sure Sakura-kun's cake doesn't burn while the rest of us are taking care of the errand. Understood?"

Kakashi looked so crestfallen Iruka really couldn't help leaning over to pat the top of his head like a puppy's. "We'll be back right afterward," Iruka assured him. "I'm sure you have enough reading material to keep yourself entertained for a bit. --You can even take notes on your, er, inspirations."

Kakashi's eye narrowed again. "Now I _know_ you're trying to ditch me."

"Of course I am," Iruka said. "What kind of birthday surprise is it if you know what we're doing for you? Be good. Stay here and make sure the cake doesn't burn. Promise me."

"Oh, all _right_."

Iruka smiled and kissed his cheek, and headed upstairs to pack towels and a camera and film for the afternoon.

Kakashi glanced at the timer on the stove. _Twenty minutes. And Iruka didn't say a thing about what had to happen _after_ the cake's done..._

* * *

At the pond, Iruka tried to explain the concept of a 'family-style swimsuit calendar,' except that Naruto and Sasuke weren't listening because they were already busily trying to drown each other. Suddenly, Naruto's enthusiasm for the prospect made a little more sense, since his new greatest goal in life appeared to be temporarily reset on "soak Sasuke's head and provide the opportunity for lots of blackmail pictures of him looking like a well-used dishmop."

Sakura was positively drooling over the opportunity to see Sasuke dripping wet and sparkling in the sunlight, and lost no time folding her yukata and splashing in with them; Iruka smiled to himself and took out the camera and started to take pictures of the three of them playing in the water.

...Well, for a certain value of "they were all still breathing afterwards so it wasn't _technically_ homicide" playing.

It didn't take the boys long to wear themselves out, given that half the time they couldn't catch their breath because their head was being held underwater; Sakura claimed the camera from Iruka somewhere in the middle of the drowning process, muttering something about apertures and angles of refraction in the spray, and Iruka stepped back and let her have at it.

When the boys were both flopped over gasping on the beach and Sakura had gotten her fill of taking pictures of wet-panting-smudged-sunglittering Sasuke, she turned toward Iruka with an impish grin that wouldn't have been out of place on Naruto.

"Your turn, Iruka-sensei," she said sweetly.

"I... er..."

Naruto summoned the energy to lift his head and glare. "You _promised!_"

Iruka didn't recall actually using the word 'promise,' but still, an agreement was an agreement. "All right," he said a bit sheepishly, loosening the yukata's obi and slipping out of the comfortable cotton fabric.

The sound of the camera's shutter startled him enough that he dropped the yukata on the ground: "S-s-sakura-kun...?"

"It's a birthday present for Kakashi-sensei, remember?" she said, still grinning. "Getting undressed is _perfect_ photo material for him. --Now, we're going to have to get you rumpled and blushing, and some dripping wouldn't hurt either. Nice start on the blushing, by the way."

"_Sakura-kun!_"

With a giggle, she took another picture.

Naruto was staring up at her with an expression compounded of disbelief and awe. "Sakura-chan, you're dangerous with that thing!" he said, sounding unsure about whether he should be more scandalized or impressed.

"Thank you!" she replied, with a photojournalist's gleam in the eye. "Throw a bucket of water at Iruka-sensei, will you?"

"I... er... but... --Naruto...? Naruto, please..."

"We all have to make sacrifices for the sake of art," Sakura said piously, tossing her hair back. "Naruto? Bucket."

"Yes, ma'am," Naruto said, and scooped a pail of water out of the pond.

* * *

From his perch in a nearby treetop, Kakashi chuckled quietly to himself and reloaded the film cartridge on his silent, flashless, high-speed stealth camera. After all, opportunities like this didn't happen every day; although he admired Sakura's dedication to the art, she'd missed five or six excellent shots during Iruka's undressing because she spent too much time considering the artistic framing of an image. She hadn't yet developed the true voyeur's keep-the-finger-on-the-shutter-button, machine-gun style photographic technique.

Jiraiya had taught him the basics of it years ago, in fact: _always keep the shutter moving, boy, because you never know when you're going to be caught and slapped into next week._ Kakashi had taken the genius's words to heart, and spared a moment to silently renew his vow of eternal gratitude to Konoha's legendary sannin on behalf of happy perverts everywhere.

* * *

By the time Team Seven returned from their afternoon's photo shoot and the ensuing debate over how best to assemble the pictures in the calendar (all of them suspiciously damp and in the boys' case oddly bruised), Kakashi was ever so innocently curled up on the sofa with one of the _respectable_ pregnancy books. He waved an easy hello as they came through the door vaguely dripping.

"Enjoy your errands?" he asked with an entirely straight face.

As Iruka hesitated, torn between politeness and honesty, Naruto said, "I'm starving! What do you wanna eat? And it better not have eggplant _or_ zucchini in it!"

"Hmm... I guess that means no stewed squash puree either, doesn't it?"

Naruto howled in agony at the very thought; Sakura giggled, and Sasuke rolled his eyes and brought a fist down on the top of Naruto's head.

"He's just messing with you, moron."

"...Dammit, if I wasn't worn out and _starving_ to death I'd kick your ass..."

"Boys, no blood on the schoolhouse floor," Iruka said firmly, wringing the last few drips of pond-water out of his ponytail.

"So what _would_ you like for dinner, Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura asked, sweet and polite as a little angel. With a shiver, Iruka realized that nobody would ever believe him if he told them she turned into a raving tyrannical fanatic-artiste with a camera in her hands.

"Well... I _was_ thinking about boiled cabbage and natto with ketchup..."

Despite Naruto's protestations of starving, he still had the energy to drop to the floor clutching at his throat rolling around making gagging sounds.

Kakashi's visible eye curved upward into a happy arc. "But I think a Wave Country-style mixed-grill sounds better, don't you? And Asakusa in the market square has a family special on weekends."

Naruto was back on his feet in a flash. "Let's go!"

"You're _sure_ you wouldn't prefer the boiled cabbage and natto?"

If looks could kill, Kakashi would have been a small smoldering blood-smear on the floor right about then.

"I take it that's a no," Kakashi said, putting a bookmark in his book and setting it down. "There's just no accounting for some people's tastes."

"That's _my_ line!" Naruto protested. "Come on, let's _go_ already!" He latched on to Kakashi's elbow and started pulling.

Feeling silly, Iruka said, "Um... can I at least get some dry clothes first...?"

Sakura said, "Iruka-sensei's right. My yukata's still wet. And I have to wash my hair and fix my makeup and--"

Naruto toppled over again with a wail.

"I'll hurry," Iruka said, trying for a peace offering.

"Yeah, but she won't!"

Suddenly Sakura was looming over him with fire blazing in her eyes as she cracked her knuckles. "_Narutooooooooooo..._"

The boy gulped hard, and offered a sickly grin. "...But you're so beautiful you don't need to change anything, Sakura-chan! --was that the right thing to say?"

"How do you think I get to be beautiful?" she shot back without blinking. "It takes _work!_"

"No it doesn't," Kakashi said with one of his more insinuating _smiles,_ looking at Iruka appreciatively.

Sakura sighed. "But we don't all have someone who loves us that much, someone to make us _feel_ beautiful," she said, looking at Sasuke.

"Hey, you have me!" Naruto protested.

"Fascinating as I find the philosophical analysis of the interrelationship of love and beauty," Kakashi said, "the longer we stand here debating it, the longer we wait for dinner. And for Sakura-chan's cake too."

"...Okay, I understood the 'longer we wait for dinner' part of that," Naruto said. "Come on, people, let's move it already!"

* * *

(sweatdrop) And the last part really SHOULD be up tonight if I can manage it... tomorrow if not... but at least I got most of it done in time... ?


	3. Part 3: Party no jutsu

**Tanjoubi no Jutsu**  
(part 3 of 3 - finally! I was seriously meaning to have this done like a week and a half ago, and then the world looked at me and said 'yeah, right.')

Squee time: Fanart! Sketch, Blueeyedgrrl, and Shi-chan gave me completely adorable fanart for Side Effects and this one -- unfortunately I can't seem to break into my website to post it because I forgot the password! But until I break into my website again (d'oh) -- I think will let this kind of web address get through; it seems to stomp on everything that has an actual URL in it:

Sketch's sweet ice-cream-at-the-festival picture is at sirladysketch dot deviantart dot com - it's deviation 10230541 - happy thank-you glomp! Iruka's so cute with the ice cream and the 'mine!' glare! And Kakashi's smirk is priceless too.

Shi-chan's way-too-cute kids picture is at shi-chan06 dot deviantart dot com and it's deviation number 10841242. (I don't think Iruka's having twins, at least not this time around, though I admit to having vaguely had it in mind for the sequel -- anyway, the pic is just adorable! And Kakashi is going to be SO dead when Iruka catches up with him. Go look to see why.)

Blueeyedgrrl is finishing the background of her picture (Naruto and Iruka from the swimsuit shot) but she let me see a preview of it and it's so cute... the calendar page I describe later on is based on her picture! (Must break into own website again... too many passwords to remember...)

Anyway, on with the story! (I SO don't write short. This piece alone is twenty pages... but I've got an actual end tacked onto it now...)

* * *

Since it was a birthday dinner, Sakura decreed, they were all required to dress nicely. Kakashi was still wearing his usual solid black turtleneck and pants; Iruka, who was trying to wriggle out of succumbing to Kakashi's taste in dresses, protested the injustice.

"I don't see why I have to wear a dress if you're wearing that! You wear that all the time."

"Black goes with everything," Kakashi said, and held out the dress with a wheedling face. "Wear it for me?"

Iruka looked dismally at the dress in question. It was made of a soft cream knit material, and it was one of the dresses Sakura had originally sent with them from Konoha... when he'd been considerably more slender. And the problem wasn't precisely that it no longer fit, because it stretched. The problem was that it _did_ stretch... and therefore clung quite snugly to Iruka's figure, including the waist -- or lack thereof. And the neckline hadn't gotten any higher as a maternal bustline developed, either. When Iruka had first been performing his sexy-no-jutsu, it was merely clingy and draping and sleek; now it looked like a thoroughly overstuffed sausage, in Iruka's rather jaundiced opinion.

"I'd feel ridiculous," Iruka said.

"You've got gorgeous curves; why not show them off?"

"Because I'm 'curving' entirely _too much!_"

Kakashi broke out the mournful puppy eyes. "It's my birthday, remember?" he said, for about the dozenth time that day.

_He's milking that for all the mileage he can get, isn't he._

_But it's true nonetheless... and it's just one day; so tomorrow when he tries to get me into something showing this much of my chest, I can remind him that it's _not_ his birthday anymore, can't I?_

With an enormous sigh, Iruka took the dress and put it on, and tugged and wriggled until it lay smooth against the various curves, even if it was a bit smoother than was really comfortable for the embarrassment level. And then Iruka went to the closet and dug out an old blue blanket to sling around his shoulders.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"It's a shawl."

"It's not a shawl, it's a blanket," Kakashi pointed out.

Iruka measured off a piece with both hands, caught the edge in his teeth, and ripped the blanket in half, then draped half the blanket around his shoulders, and fidgeted with the fabric until the bare cleavage and the snugly-limned mound of the baby were hidden. "_Now_ it's a shawl," he said.

Wisely, Kakashi kept his mouth shut.

Somehow or other, they'd all cleaned up presentably -- even Naruto, because Sakura had browbeaten him into leaving the orange jacket behind, and he had a much less blinding blue shirt underneath it. Sakura, who was wearing a spring-green dress that matched her eyes, took one look at Iruka and opened her mouth.

"Iruka says it's a 'shawl,'" Kakashi observed.

Sakura looked back and forth between her teachers' expressions, sighed, and said, "I'll be right back."

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto protested. "I'm starving already!"

In a few minutes, Sakura came back with a much more plausible-looking shawl to drape around Iruka's shoulders. It wasn't as baggy or as thick, though, and Iruka kept tugging at the ends to try to make it cover a bit more of the bulge until Sakura smacked his hands, retied it, and said, "Now, come on."

"_Finally,"_ Naruto sighed.

He was still clutching his head and rubbing at the lump Sakura had left there when they walked into the Wave Country restaurant.

The barely-teenaged boy who greeted them with a bow at the door was clearly the restaurant owners' son; tonight he was trying his best to look adult and respectable despite the fact that he was barely older than Team Seven. He even tried to push his voice down a little as he asked, "Table for five?"

"For six!" Naruto said cheerfully, and pulled the ends of Iruka's shawl away to point at the belly-bulge limned by the snugly-stretched dress. "See? At least five and three quarters, anyway!"

"_Naruto_..."

"For six, then," the boy said, and bowed particularly deeply, and set about being almost humiliatingly overchivalrous to the pregnant schoolteacher. They were escorted to an alcove with a low table and several sitting-pillows scattered around, but the boy went to fetch a legless floor-chair and settle pillows into the seat and the back, and he fussed and fidgeted until Iruka had assured the boy half a dozen times over that this was really quite comfortable, thank-you-very-much. Naruto was giggling the whole time; the moment the overassiduous young man left them alone, Iruka's fist came down solidly on the top of Naruto's head.

"Hey, what was that for?"

"Funny, I was about to ask you the same thing," Iruka retorted.

"Ordering for six means they give us more food, of course!" Naruto said, rubbing his head indignantly.

"It's an all-you-can-eat restaurant, moron," Sasuke said.

Naruto's eyes went very, very wide.

Iruka suddenly felt sorry for the restaurant owners, as Naruto turned to Kakashi and said, "All right, I officially forgive you for the eggplant miso now. I think I forgive you for about a week of eggplant miso, even! --But _no_ natto; that stuff's just _wrong._"

"I'll keep that in mind, then," Kakashi said, snuggling closer to Iruka and slipping an arm around his waist.

"Do you want a chair too, Kakashi-sensei?"

"Oh, I'll just share Iruka's."

"That's going to be a pretty full chair," Naruto said, grinning.

"All in the name of family togetherness," Kakashi told him, with a saintly expression. But beneath the edge of the table, Kakashi's hand was wandering along the place where the curve of belly met the curve of thigh, and it was all Iruka could do to keep from jumping straight out of the chair at the tickle.

"..._Stop_ that!"

"You don't want our family togetherness...?" he asked pitifully.

"I don't want to dump scalding tea down your pants when you tickle somewhere that makes me twitch," Iruka replied with half-lidded eyes.

Kakashi's wandering hand hastily found a place to rest against a curve, and stayed put.

There was a firepit in the center of the table itself, filled with glowing coals beneath a grate; one side of the grate held a flat piece of iron and the other side held a bowl of simmering broth. Naruto looked into the broth and then up at Kakashi, and he said with a growl, "This better not be 'all you can eat' of soup without any ramen anywhere!"

"So suspicious? I'm crushed."

"You like _eggplant,_" Naruto retorted.

"Just shut up and wait, moron," Sasuke said.

"Oh yeah? Maybe I'll cook your head in the soup instead--"

"_Boys,_" Iruka said firmly. "Behave yourselves."

Sasuke and Naruto shot each other a dirty look, and then glared off at opposite corners of the room.

Kakashi's fingertips were getting a bit adventurous again, rubbing little back-and-forth patterns against the smooth round curve of Iruka's belly. After a moment's consideration Iruka decided he didn't mind the rubbing, because it felt rather nice; but the line between rubbing and tickling was a narrow one, so Iruka put his hand over Kakashi's to be able to perform any necessary tickle-policing.

Judging by the suspiciously sappy look in Sakura's eyes, though, she was finding a more romantic interpretation of the gesture; he didn't have the heart to enlighten the girl. With a small sigh, Iruka tilted his head to rest against Kakashi's, and smiled for Sakura as he said under his breath to the thistle-headed rogue who was ever so carefully not _quite_ tickling, "You behave yourself too."

"Yes dear," Kakashi breathed into his ear, his lips barely brushing the outer curve, and Iruka twitched despite himself.

"_Stop_ that! Next time I could have tea in my hands or something..."

Sakura had a hand to her lips, but the giggle escaped anyway. Sasuke was scowling at the fire grate, and Naruto had a suspiciously dippy grin on.

"If you guys want, we could leave you alone. --Guys _and girls!_" he amended too late, and then clamped a hand over his mouth and mumbled, "I mean _guy and girl_, I don't mean, er, _lots_ or anything, that's way too-- I mean-- I, er, I should just shut up already, right? Yeah. Shutting up. Really. But I just meant--"

Sasuke 'helpfully' clamped a hand over Naruto's mouth.

Naruto promptly bit it.

Before the small-scale riot in the making could escalate, Iruka pulled two of the chair cushions out from behind his back and flung them from point-blank range; at that velocity the pillows had enough momentum to divert the tumbling snarl of flailing limbs far enough away that Naruto's thrashing foot didn't upend the table and the coals all over the floor.

"_Can't I take you two ANYWHERE?_" Iruka shouted at the top of his lungs, leaning on the table with both hands to keep it still just in case the next kick flew wide.

Fortunately, it stopped the dogpile of thrashing ninja limbs.

Unfortunately, it stopped the rest of the restaurant too. Heads from several different alcoves turned in their direction.

His face hot enough to rival the embers in the firepit, Iruka squeaked, "Never mind us!" He looked at the low table and wondered if he could actually fit underneath it at the moment.

Sasuke and Naruto executed another uncannily synchronized 'glare-scowl-hmph-othercorner' maneuver. Sakura had her elbows on the table and her face in both hands, shaking her head helplessly.

When Iruka tried to sit back down, he discovered a Kakashi-lap had insinuated itself between his hips and his chair, and it was a bit awkward to try to shift to one side to aim for what was left of the chair. Kakashi resolved the issue by slipping both arms around Iruka's waist, to keep the blushing teacher squarely in his lap.

"You are _such_ an opportunist," Iruka said.

"Of course I am," Kakashi replied cheerfully. "In love, war, and buffet-style dining, the one who takes the initiative wins."

"...Um. Wasn't the proverb something to do with love, war, and taxes...?"

"Nobody wins with taxes."

"Er. I'll keep that in mind--" And Kakashi's hands were wandering again. Iruka promptly pinned Kakashi's hands with both of his own: _"Stop_ that!"

"I have to entertain myself _somehow_ now that you've kept them from providing tableside entertainment and bloodshed, you know."

But despite the flippant words, Kakashi's hands settled suspiciously quickly into the tender little fingertip-caresses, content to be gentle and soothing and almost unnervingly not-reprehensible. Iruka wondered if there was something to Naruto's theory about the convoluted yin-yang interrelationship of macho-and-mushy in Kakashi's mind after all.

Sasuke was still staring at his corner; he had a far better grasp of long-term grudge-holding and attitudinal brooding than Naruto, having refined the theory over too many years of relentless practice.

Naruto had gotten bored with his corner, glanced toward his teachers again, and was now blushing dull red, staring at the pattern in the wood grain of the table and wriggling and rubbing his fingertips together. He was clearly straining every nerve he possessed in the effort not to bolt for the door in a teenaged-boy romance-sugar-overload embarrassment reflex.

Iruka stilled his lover's caring hands with a brief pang of regret, and murmured, "Kakashi..."

"But it's so cute watching them squirm!" Kakashi whispered back, and Iruka could all but _feel_ the grin that was being hidden in his ponytail.

"_Kakashi._"

"Look, the food's here," he said brightly, and flexed his fingertips to regain enough room for that rhythmic, tender massage-caress.

Iruka would have given him quite a scolding if the food hadn't actually arrived at that moment. There were dozens of little bowls of ingredients on the platter: vegetables, spices, sprouts, pickles, greens with sesame, tiny fried fish, spiced potatoes, cabbage that was red from the peppers it had been marinating in -- and a waitress who was showing _far_ too much cleavage in a halter-top and translucent dancing skirt bent over the table to set the dishes around the firepit.

This time Naruto was turning red for an entirely different reason, and Sakura was glaring daggers at the young woman, leaning to interpose herself between Sasuke and the waitress's lack of clothing. Sasuke didn't even notice; he was still busily glaring at his corner. Iruka squeaked a little when Kakashi brushed a thumb against his palm.

"Relax," he murmured. "I prefer the view from right here."

"I wasn't--"

"Your back went stiff the minute she bent over," Kakashi whispered into his ear, far too amused.

Because there was really no non-humiliating way to protest concern for Naruto's too-young eyes and the hazards of exposing that much skin around hot food that could spill, at least not without sounding like he was desperate for excuses, Iruka bit his lip and concentrated on relaxing so that Kakashi couldn't tease him again. Or at least not as much.

The waitress showed them how to oil the iron plate for cooking the meat, how to thread the vegetables onto long sticks to simmer in the hot broth, how to shape flat pieces of dough and cook them on the iron plate until they were golden and puffy quick-breads for scooping up other ingredients with, how to wrap cooked meat in a bit of lettuce or bread and dip it in the sauces and eat it with fingertips -- Naruto was nodding the entire time, but Iruka had a sinking feeling the information was going in one ear and out the other, since his gaze had never once lifted to the level of her eyes.

_Probably taking notes for 'improvements' on his sexy-no-jutsu. I don't know whether to scold him or be grateful he's at least studying _something _diligently..._

But the boy surprised him a bit; despite his apparent drooling-ogledom, when the waitress turned to go, he actually had the foresight to tug on a corner of her skirt, since there was no other fabric available for tugging that wouldn't earn a slap into next week.

"Yes?" the young woman asked.

"You've got that pot of soup cooking away right there; haven't you got any ramen to go into it?" Naruto asked plaintively.

She blinked a couple of times, then said, "It's not exactly soup, but... er... I'll ask the cook for you," and headed toward the kitchen.

Only then did Naruto look down at his mug of tea, and he choked and coughed and spluttered so much Sakura leaned over to thump him on the back.

"Now what?" she asked.

"It's -- it's -- _orange!_" he protested.

"So? You like orange," Sakura reminded him.

"In _clothes,_ sure! But that's not _tea!_ Tea's not supposed to be _orange_ like that, is it? And you can't even see through it--"

"That's because they put milk in it," Kakashi said.

"_MILK? In TEA?_"

"And sugar too," he informed them, clearly amused by the boy's incredulous reaction.

"Gaaaaaah..." He picked up the mug and sipped very gingerly, then said in sheer outrage, "And it's _cold!_"

"Trust me, you'll be grateful later," Kakashi said, one hand reaching over to spear a couple slices of beef to set on the grill; the other hand continued its gentle cradling.

"Why would I be grateful for _cold orange tea with sugar and cow squeezings in it_?" Naruto grumbled, grabbing a chopstick-sample of the nearest dish.

"Because as soon as you bite into the pepper-pickled cabbage--"

--too late; Naruto's eyes were as wide as the teacup, and he chugged the tea down without even blinking, then poured himself another mug and downed half of it too.

"--you'll realize that milk, sugar, and cold tea are three of the best solutions for the level of spices in a lot of Wave Country food," Kakashi finished, munching on a not-spiced-at-all slice of vinegared cucumber. "In general, the more red it is, the more chilies it has in it. --That's not a tomato-based sauce, by the way, Sasuke-kun."

Unfortunately, Sasuke's one-upmanship reflex had kicked in the minute he saw Naruto chug the tea, and he couldn't back down.

"I breathe fire, remember?" Sasuke muttered, and tried not to flinch as he took a bite of the meat he'd just doused in red sauce as though it were marinara instead of chili paste.

Watching the boy's face turn blue and then purple, Iruka said faintly, "Do you want some tea, Sasuke-kun?"

"...'m fine...!"

He managed to control the outward expression of agony for at least twenty seconds before he clutched at his mug tightly enough Iruka worried it might shatter in his hands, and he not-_quite_-chugged the contents.

Sakura looked back and forth between Naruto and Sasuke, who were currently shoveling as many chili-based foods onto their plate as they could grab, caught in their eternal battle of cooler-than-thou. After a long moment, she heaved an enormous sigh of resignation, and shifted closer to the teachers. Devoted as she was to the goal of becoming Sasuke's one true love whether he realized it or not, Sakura herself had to admit that there were times when he was nearly as bad as Naruto.

"So what are -- er -- _were_ all those dishes, Kakashi-sensei?"

* * *

Iruka had quietly begged the waitress not to bring refills of anything with noticeable amounts of chili in it, so that the boys couldn't actually hurt themselves with their food; after the chili-duel ran out, Naruto had eaten more vegetables than he'd likely eaten in the rest of his life combined, not even noticing that they were vegetables as long as they _weren't_ doused with chili. And he'd wheedled a bowl with noodles out of the chef, too. They weren't proper ramen noodles -- they were fine and white and almost silky, and Kakashi said they were made from rice -- but they were close enough to be comfort food for the boy after the evening's debacle. (Whether because of his experience with breathing fire or because of his greater ability to hide his emotions, including agony -- in any event, Sasuke had clearly won the chili-eating duel. If it could be called 'winning', of course, given how miserable they both were afterwards.)

Kakashi, Iruka, and Sakura, on the other hand, had had an enjoyable and tasty meal with interesting conversation; Sakura was already speaking of plans to go back with Satori and some of the other village teens. The boys kept fixed shaky grins on reddish-purple faces as they stumbled along after the others, and each of them darted off into the bushes at one point or another during the walk back.

Taking pity on them both, Sakura said brightly, "Sugar and milk help with spices, you said, Kakashi-sensei? Then I suppose we'll just have to get into the cake and ice cream as soon as we get back, won't we."

Both Naruto and Sasuke had near-identical glazed looks of whimpering gratitude on their faces.

* * *

When they arrived home, Sakura herded the others onto the schoolhouse porch so that she could decorate the cake to her satisfaction; she refused anyone entrance into the kitchen on pain of, if not death, at least bloody trauma.

Naruto and Sasuke were still too busy not-whimpering at the lingering pain in burning mouths to put up a fight, and Kakashi took the opportunity to lift Iruka onto his lap again.

"...What are you doing now?"

"There are several potential answers I could make here," Kakashi mused, rubbing his chin. "How to decide..."

Iruka waited for a minute, then said, "Well?"

"Hmm... attempt number one: I'm being an overprotective and solicitous father-to-be. I've read all about how expecting mothers have to be careful with their blood circulation, especially in the final months, and if I let you sit on the porch then the edge could press against the artery in your legs, and we can't have that now can we...? And my lap is softer, so I've got nothing but your best interests at heart--"

"Try attempt number two," Iruka told him, with half-lidded eyes.

"You're sure? I have a feeling you're not going to like attempt number two."

"I didn't like attempt number one either," Iruka replied sourly. "You're normally not THAT bad at lying through your teeth."

"You're really sure?"

"Really."

"I see. All right, attempt number two--" Kakashi leaned forward to offer his best pervert-grin over Iruka's shoulder, and said in a tone of greatly-overexaggerated indignation, "Isn't it obvious? Molesting you, of course!"

Iruka coughed, wheezed, and then started laughing.

Kakashi blinked in what might have been actual astonishment. "...You _liked_ attempt number two?"

"At least it's _honest_...!" Iruka scrubbed laugh-tears from his eyes and let himself settle more comfortably into Kakashi's lap. "And besides... if you get too fresh with the boys watching, keep in mind: my elbows are in perfect striking range...!"

"Yes, dear," Kakashi replied in a tone of great contentment, and cupped both hands to the smooth, firm mound of Iruka's belly. Then, a moment later, he blinked in astonishment down at the bulge: "Did you feel that?"

"Could I have _not_ felt it?" Iruka replied, half exasperated and half indulgent, rubbing fingertips against the place the baby had kicked hard enough to ache. "She takes after you. She's getting strong. --Ouch. And feisty," he added ruefully at another kick.

Suddenly, there were too many hands for the amount of available space on Iruka's belly despite how much larger it had grown of late. Iruka counted again, then looked over to find Naruto sneaking his hands into the tangle of limbs.

"You could just ask, you know," Iruka told the boy wryly, taking one of his hands to guide to the place where the baby was kicking a fretful rhythm against his abdominal wall.

Naruto gave a sheepish giggle, then blinked down at Iruka's bulge.

"...He _is_ getting strong," the boy said, clearly unsure whether to be impressed or outraged on Iruka's behalf. "Hey! Hey, you in there!" He poked Iruka's belly with a fingertip, and said, "Settle down some, will you? Be nice!"

From Sasuke's side of the porch, there was a shift in the shadows and a quiet mutter of "Idiot."

"But he's hurting Iruka-sensei!" Naruto protested.

"It's not even _born_ yet," Sasuke replied, low-pitched.

"So?"

"So there's no way it knows what you're saying, moron."

"Bastard, I oughtta--"

"Stay here," Iruka said hastily, catching at Naruto's hands and pressing them against the curve. "The baby likes being touched; I think she's been settling down since the two of you have been rubbing so gently-- see? Stay right here--" He stopped himself short before his mouth could finish with _and don't destroy the porch on Kakashi's birthday; it's been such a pleasant, _quiet_ evening... _

Then he thought back over the day's events and silently amended, _Most of the time. --At least, nobody's been arrested or started bleeding, and that's sometimes as close as it gets to 'pleasant and quiet' around here..._

With a wordless grumble, Naruto plonked down beside his teachers and turned his attention to Iruka's snug, swollen abdomen. He concentrated fiercely on his rubbing, tracing a pattern Kakashi had once shown him from the non-reprehensible pregnancy book: up and around as Iruka breathed in, down and in beneath the navel as he breathed out, a great gentle heart-shape over the belly-curve. From the look of absolute focused intensity on the boy's face, an observer might have mistaken it for some tricky and dangerous high-level jutsu.

The baby stirred again, and Naruto flinched, stricken: "I'm sorry -- was that my fault? Was I rubbing too hard, or not hard enough, or not in the right spot, or--"

"You're doing just fine," Iruka soothed, reaching over to rumple the boy's sunny hair. "It felt very nice. And see, the baby wasn't kicking that time -- just pushing a little; I think she wants to stretch, she's all curled up and there's less room than there used to be. It's all right. Would you mind if I asked you to keep rubbing? It really does feel nice..."

"...Right!" With the tip of his tongue caught between his teeth in concentration, Naruto went back to his carefully-measured pattern, as though he worried that Iruka might burst if he made a mistake in the rhythm or placement of the gentle little massage.

Sasuke, meanwhile, was staring at the three of them with agonizing conflict written all over his face, if you knew how to read the flicker of his eyes and the minute shifts of the scowl. Jealousy and the desire to be included were caught in mortal combat with aloof contempt and the need not to ever let his arch-rival _see_ him doing something as sappy as asking for his own chance to feel the baby moving and rub his pregnant teacher's roundly distended belly.

If Iruka's next breath had a little more to do with a sigh than usual, it was understandable; Kakashi grinned over Iruka's shoulder with an expressive roll of the one visible eye, but kept his mouth shut too.

A rapturous sigh of bliss was accompanied by the click of a shutter; Iruka sat bolt upright, having been thoroughly terrorized by that sound earlier in the day. Sakura giggled and waved her free hand at him: "No, no, relax! Naruto, keep patting Iruka-sensei's tummy like that. You're being so sugary at each other, I ought to put you on the cake too..."

"_Hey!_" Naruto protested, his teenaged pride offended. "I don't do sugary!"

"Oh really? The camera would argue with you," Sakura said with an evil grin, dangling it just out of his reach.

Predictably, Naruto lunged for the bait; she danced back, giggling. "Oh no you don't! Hurt the camera and I won't give you any of the birthday cake!"

"..._Cake!_" Naruto let out a whoop and dashed past her to aim for the kitchen.

"No, wait, Kakashi-sensei has to blow out his candles first--!"

"...That moron." Sasuke pushed himself to his feet and followed the other two inside; Iruka looked over his shoulder at Kakashi, who was showing no signs of letting go.

"Don't you want to see Sakura-kun's work before the boys tear into it?"

Instead of replying aloud, Kakashi shifted him a bit in his arms and kissed him. For quite a while.

When they had to come up for air again, Iruka was thoroughly rumpled and blushing all the way to the collar-line of the rather revealing dress. "...Wha... huh... uh...?"

With a happy grin, Kakashi nuzzled Iruka's cheek to make him squeak again, and breathed into his ear, "I'm sure the cake will do fine on its own. This is already the best birthday I've had for years... because I _can_ spend it with you, in public, enjoying ourselves and each other, and no one stares and whispers. --Besides, I thought you liked attempt number two!"

One of his fingertips was tracing the collar-line of the dress for illustration -- and tugging; his face burning crimson, Iruka clamped both hands over Kakashi's to try to keep the dress-top in place.

"You -- they're -- we're -- but--"

"Yes, dear?"

"...Aaauuuggggh--!" Iruka managed, in a strange half-strangled-shout half-whisper, trapped between the need to express blushing frustration and the need not to draw the kids' attention back outside again.

...Too late; there were feet thumping towards the door, and Naruto crashed through and skidded to a stop on his knees beside Iruka, panting.

"I'msorry-I'msorry-I'msorry-I'm_sorry_! Sakura-chan reminded me -- I'm so sorry, when she said 'cake' I completely forgot you wanted me to keep rubbing your tummy, Iruka-sensei, I'm sorry--"

He gulped for breath, whacked his forehead against the nearest post for good measure, and reached somewhat-dizzy hands towards Iruka's belly in order to take up his 'appointed' task again.

Iruka and Kakashi traded a long, rueful look, and followed it with a few quiet signs written into each other's palms.

_Smart girl. A little too smart, actually. I can see why she wanted him out from underfoot before one of them planted the other's face in the cake, but why'd she have to dump him on us?_

_Be nice. He's just concerned for me._ Iruka's free hand gently smoothed the boy's sun-bright thatch of hair.

_You didn't believe me when I was being a concerned-daddy at you._ Even his fingertips managed to pout.

_You ALWAYS have ulterior motives. Whereas Naruto wouldn't know an ulterior motive if it walked up and bit him._

_He's sitting there molesting you too, you know,_ Kakashi replied._ Hands wandering all over your belly like that-- touching your pregnant body, so tender, so intimate; drawing the fabric taut over your gravid, blossoming ripeness-- watching you as your aching, milk-swollen breasts heave with each soft, sweet, pleasure-warmed breath..._

Iruka's elbow went sharply back into Kakashi's ribs, followed by a fingertip shaking with indignation as he retorted, _You know perfectly well he's just comforting the baby and me, you pervert! Don't ascribe your own kinkiness to everyone--_

Both hands still industriously rubbing the careful heart-shape over Iruka's bulge, Naruto looked up in surprise when Kakashi burst out laughing (despite a distinct wheeze to the sound).

"...Huh?"

"All right, everyone stay there," Sakura said from the doorway, with a cake full of merrily-dancing candles in her hands; behind her, Sasuke had ice cream, bowls, and the perpetual scowl.

Naruto looked back and forth between the cake and Iruka with sheer misery in his eyes. "I want cake, but... but...!"

"It's all right, Naruto," Iruka said ruefully.

"But if it helps you feel better...!"

Kakashi reached over and scruffled the boy's hair. "Don't worry," he said sagely. "You can keep rubbing later. I promise."

"But..."

With entirely too angelic a face, Kakashi said, "Naruto, I understand. I appreciate your concern for our sweet, delicate, fragile Iruka-sensei, who needs the support of your strong hands to be able to endure the discomforts of her difficult pregnancy, in this exhausting and inexpressibly tender condition." He set a hand solidly on the boy's shoulder, and said with a tone of vast and grave sincerity, "Trust me on this, Naruto. She'll be just as pregnant thirty seconds after you've scarfed down your piece of cake as she is right now."

Iruka had begun to make little choking sounds somewhere in the middle of the speech, and by the end of it he was whimpering, face hidden in both hands, trapped in the dilemma of whether to scream in frustration, hit someone, or run for his life before Naruto took it into his head that it was now his civic duty to rub his teacher's burgeoning tummy every conscious minute until the birth. The corner of Sakura's mouth was twitching in a way that suggested she was a hair's breadth from bursting into hilarity. Sasuke just rolled his eyes.

Naruto, on the other hand, gave Kakashi a watery-eyed look of gratitude: "If you're _sure_ it's okay, thank you! I promise I won't let you down!"

"Good boy," Kakashi replied, his visible eye all proud smiles. "I know I can count on you! For the sake of our mutual adoration for your beloved teacher and the precious unborn child resting beneath her gentle and yet fierily passionate heart, we two shall--"

Unable to stand it any longer, Iruka reached up for the cake in Sakura's hands, with a crazed half-formed notion of shoving the entire candle-flaming mess up Kakashi's left nostril. Worried by the look on his face, Sakura whisked it out of reach hastily, and said, "Kakashi-sensei, do you want to blow these candles out before someone starts _wearing_ the cake?"

Meanwhile, Naruto was blinking at him in slowly-comprehending near-horror. "Kakashi-sensei... you were sounding like _Gai-sensei_ for a minute there...!"

"Did I? Hmm. How strange..." He caught Iruka in a bear-hug that also served to keep his fuming lover's arms pinned, then leaned over and blew out the candles quickly, so that Sakura could whisk the cake out of assault and battery range to be cut and served in a more normal fashion than the one Iruka had in mind.

"Gai-sensei, you said?" he mused. "Funny, I could have sworn I never mentioned 'the passion of youth' or 'the springtime of our lives' or--"

"_You just did!_" Naruto wailed. "Snap out of it, Kakashi-sensei, you're scaring me now!"

"Well, I suppose there are worse things to be," Kakashi said thoughtfully. "Green is such a striking color, don't you think? And I'm sure it would put an amicable end to our 'eternal rivalry' if I started to model myself after him-- though I don't know what I can do for the eyebrows. Hmm."

Naruto's face had turned blue, and he was stuttering in sheer shaking horror. "K-k-k-kakashi-sensei--!"

"I suppose I'll just have to accept my own unfortunate eyebrow-impaired-ness," he said with a florid sigh, fingertips to heart. "It's truly a handicap, but I'm sure he'd appreciate my most sincere effort! And he's not the type to gloat about his own preternatural eyebrow-giftedness; so I'm sure he'd encourage me to do my best to overcome my inherent shortcomings in the facial hair department, and to forge on with passionate determination and fervor to--"

"_GYAAAAAAAAAAHHHH---!"_

Sasuke dropped a scoop of ice cream on the porch at the oddly stereophonic scream of horror from Naruto and Iruka in unison. But while Naruto was lunging away from the heart-stopping terror that was Kakashi-sensei in "Gai-sensei drugged on youthful passion" mode, Iruka was lunging _toward_ Sakura.

More specifically, Iruka was lunging toward the long and sharp knife she was using to cut the cake.

* * *

"You really _can_ come down from the roof now, Sakura-kun," Iruka said, trying for his most reasonable voice. "I promised I wasn't going to kill him on his birthday!"

..._although that vow didn't mention anything about a little blood and pain and screams begging forgiveness..._

"Sasuke-kun?" she called. "Can I really?"

"...Hmph."

"Kakashi-sensei, I can't translate out of Sasuke-ese when I can't see him!" she wailed, clinging to the chimney. "Kick once for no and twice for yes, okay?"

Kakashi, who was currently hog-tied to the porch railing with Iruka's shawl and gagged with Naruto's headband, wriggled around enough to get the leverage to knock a foot against the post. Once.

"Kick that again," Iruka growled, arms folded.

Dutifully, Kakashi kicked the post again.

"Iruka-sensei, you're not helping!" Sakura wailed. "And I know the ice cream's got to be melting--"

"No it's not," Iruka said with a sigh.

"...It's not?"

"No. So come down and bring the knife so we can finish cutting the cake already, okay?"

"Why isn't the ice cream melting?"

Iruka glowered into the shadows under the edge of the porch; sitting underneath the boards, Naruto huddled tighter around the tub of ice cream he'd confiscated from Sasuke somewhere along the trajectory of his mad dash for safety from frothing-Gai-mad Kakashi-sensei.

"Because Naruto's eating it all, of course," Iruka called back, rubbing his temples. "It'll be gone long before it can melt! Just come down so we can get some of the ice cream too, all right?"

Naruto started eating faster.

* * *

Cleaning the frosting off a kunai before resheathing it, Iruka grumbled, "You didn't _have_ to leave the kitchen knife in the roof shingles, Sakura-kun."

Sakura glanced over at Kakashi, who was still hog-tied and attempting to wriggle toward the plate of cake that had been left a couple inches from his nose, and said, "Iruka-sensei, I think it's just safer for everyone when the knife's up there."

Iruka sighed, and thumped one foot on the porch decking to get the attention of the boy still hiding under it. "Naruto? If there's any of the ice cream left, we'd appreciate a taste of it."

The garbled-mouth-full reply wasn't very intelligible. However, Iruka had an advantage in years of translating through bowls of Naruto's ramen.

"Yes, I promise Kakashi-sensei isn't going to be talking like Gai-sensei anymore."

Naruto gulped down a mouthful of ice cream, and called, "You're _sure_ about that?"

"Trust me," Iruka said, eyeing his cheerfully unrepentant lover, who was attempting to lick the frosting off his piece of cake in an effort to not get it all over his face when he tried to eat off the plate with his arms tied behind his back. "The next time Kakashi-sensei starts talking like Gai-sensei, it won't last nearly long enough to worry anyone, because I will personally rip his tongue out of his head with my bare hands. All right?"

Naruto considered that for a minute, then asked, "Iruka-sensei, should I be more scared of you than of Kakashi-sensei?"

"Probably, yes," Iruka agreed with a fixed smile. "In other words, _listen_ to me when I tell you to _get up here and bring the ice cream_ so we can at least _pretend_ to have _some_ semblance of a _SANE_ _birthday party!_"

* * *

In the end, there was about enough ice cream left for everyone to get a scoop and a half. It was a little mushy after the amount of time it had spent melting during the various scrambles, but Naruto didn't care, and the others all knew better than to comment. Kakashi had worked his way out of the ropes some time ago, and was entertaining himself by trying to look tied up whenever Iruka glanced his direction and sneaking forkfuls of cake whenever Iruka looked away.

Iruka finally asked him with a sigh, "Will you just put the ropes away so I can take a halfway-normal-looking birthday picture of the group of us?"

"Yes, dear."

Sasuke was busily eating his fourth piece of cake, staring fiercely at the plate so that he could at least pretend to himself that he didn't know any of these people.

Sakura was wearing the too-bright, glazed, brittle smile of a society hostess whose guests had inexplicably begun a food fight with the soup-and-crudites, and who was agonizingly determined to push the party through at least the second course without bloodshed on the linen tablecloths. "Presents!" she said, her mouth not moving from that carefully-rigid smile lest she show too many clenched teeth. "I'm going to get the presents..."

"I'm going too," Sasuke said, and followed her inside.

Naruto, who was industriously rubbing at Iruka's abdomen again, looked up at his teacher with wistful eyes. "Iruka-sensei, your tummy feels all tight and hard now," he said. "It wasn't like that earlier. Are you okay?"

_Am I okay? Let's see. My best kitchen knife is imbedded in the roof, Naruto's still covered in dirt and leaves from his hideout under the porch, Kakashi's playing with the ropes again, I don't even want to think about what he's fantasizing about right now, I'm sure Sakura thinks I'm dangerously insane, and God only knows what Sasuke thinks of all of us because he'll certainly never do us the courtesy of explaining -- so am I okay?_

_The answer to that question really shouldn't take this much contemplation..._

"Iruka-sensei...?"

"Just a little tense," Iruka managed, finding a smile that probably looked a great deal like Sakura's. "It's been a long, _long_ day. I'll be fine as soon as I get some rest."

_And some peace and quiet _without_ chili-eating contests or Gai-hallucinations or Naruto wanting pictures of my pregnant body in lingerie or shoplifting pornography or... God, I don't even know what Sasuke thought up, and he's got the discretion to actually get away with shoplifting pornography; please, God, I don't want to see Kakashi open an Icha Icha Paradise book from _any_ of his _far_ underage students..._

Whatever it was Sasuke had, it was wrapped in a blanket and bulged oddly and clattered a bit when he set the sizable bundle down. Sakura followed him with the neatly-wrapped calendar and an envelope in her hands.

By comparison with the rest of the evening, the gift-giving was practically uneventful. Kakashi was clearly far too delighted by flipping through the swimsuit calendar, and he kept lingering on July, which had a picture of Iruka in the bikini and a wrap, sitting by the pond cradling the baby-bulge and smiling; Naruto was sitting beside him in blazing orange shorts and making the victory-sign with two fingers and a happy-go-lucky grin, but Iruka had the distinct feeling Kakashi wasn't looking at Naruto's swimsuit. Sakura had to put the envelope over the picture in order to get Kakashi to notice its existence.

The envelope held the gift certificate Sakura had bought from the bookstore they'd visited. It would pay for a volume of Icha Icha Paradise -- quite specifically, calculated down to the tax. (Of course, none of them were surprised that Kakashi recognized the value calculated down to the tax of a volume of Icha Icha Paradise.) When his eyes focused on the gift certificate, Naruto fell over with a thump and lay on the porch clutching his head, muttering something incoherent about ninjas and kicking things.

Kakashi said quite happily, "There's a reason I've always said you're my brightest student ever!"

"You've only had the three of us," Sasuke pointed out.

"Details, details." His eyes wandered toward the pile of random lumps under the blanket, and he asked, "What on earth is that, by the way? I have to admit I can't even decide where to start guessing. Impressive work, Sasuke-kun."

"It's not fully assembled yet," Sasuke replied, his gaze a little too steady. "Everyone, close your eyes for a minute."

Dutifully, Iruka closed his eyes and quietly put his hands over Naruto's eyes, just to be sure.

There was some scuffling and a couple of thumps and a scrape, and then Sasuke's voice said from far closer than expected, "Thank you, Iruka-sensei." A split second later, Naruto yelped in outrage, and vanished from under Iruka's hands.

"_Hey!_ Hey, whaddayathinkyer--mmrrrpppffff--!"

The scuffles got a little more violent before Sasuke said, a little breathless, "You can look now."

He was wearing one backpack and holding another, and a third was tied to the top of a litter that also held Naruto's thoroughly-trussed and wriggling body; appalled, Iruka recognized a couple of the knots he'd just used on Kakashi, and reminded himself yet again how quick a learner Sasuke was even without his Sharingan activated.

"Sasuke-kun?" Iruka asked faintly.

"This is my birthday present for Kakashi-sensei," Sasuke replied, testing the straps before he tossed the second pack to Sakura and picked up the ends of the litter. "The three of us are going camping tonight. So you'll have the schoolhouse all to yourselves. Nice and--" the boy's face was actually pinking a bit, but he actually managed with a nearly straight face, "nice and quiet."

"Sasuke?" Kakashi said, his voice brimming with hilarity. "The next time I spring a pop quiz -- you've already passed."

Iruka asked, "But why tie up Naruto...?"

"Because he wouldn't come along quietly if I asked, because it's me asking; this was faster than the argument," Sasuke said, and picked up the end of the litter and dragged it down off the porch. "See you tomorrow. Sakura?"

"Coming!" the girl said hastily, slipping her camping-pack on and trotting after him. "You're so romantic, Sasuke-kun!"

"...hmph."

"No, really, I mean it! Leaving Kakashi-sensei and Iruka-sensei their privacy, just like a honeymoon -- and going off practically alone together... it could be kind of a romantic getaway for the two of us too, you know..." She rubbed two fingertips together and giggled.

"..._hmph._" But his voice sounded just a little panicked around the edges.

Iruka reflected ruefully that Sasuke had certainly made the greatest sacrifice of them all for the sake of Kakashi's present.

Naruto was still wriggling and squirming on the litter; Sakura sighed aloud. "Although it's not going to be too romantic with such a noisy brat! Can we just hang him in a tree somewhere for the night?"

"_No._"

Naruto's mutterings actually took on a somewhat grateful tone. Privately, Iruka wondered whether Sasuke was being kind for Naruto's sake, or simply to place a noisy orange buffer zone between himself and Sakura's visions of solitary stargazing wilderness romance; but as long as the end result was that he didn't have to worry about Naruto being hung in a tree like a slab of beef to be kept from the bears overnight, Iruka decided it wasn't worth thinking too hard about Sasuke's motivations.

"The entire schoolhouse," Kakashi said dreamily. "All to ourselves. All night long. The teacher's desk, and the students' desks, and the supply cabinet, and the paddle, and you've already found a nice supply of ropes--"

With a quiet sigh, Iruka stopped worrying about Naruto's safety and started worrying about his own.

"This," Kakashi said happily, already beginning to tug at the shoulder of Iruka's dress, "is the most fun I've ever had on my birthday."

In a last-ditch attempt at a brief distraction, Iruka asked,"What did you wish for when you blew out the candles?"

"If I say it out loud, it won't come true," Kakashi murmured into the curve of his throat, coaxing the collar of the dress off Iruka's shoulder and admiring the curve revealed. " Come inside and let me unwrap my favorite present of all, and I'll show you."

"Page 161; I remember," Iruka said, trying not to let himself blush; because it was, after all, Kakashi's birthday.

* * *

(pant pant pant) Okay, I finished one! Still hot off the press (I haven't even reread the birthday scene)... I just HAD to get this posted before it turned into a month later, because as ironically appropriate as that would be for Kakashi's birthday, there's just a rational limit on how far apart things can be posted and still partially-respectably call themselves one-shots.

Oh yeah - and the consensus at LJ seems to be that this is a PG-13 story after all, so I'm remarking the rating. (Now, the lemon I'm trying to get up the nerve to write about what Kakashi and Iruka do with Sasuke's present is something else...) Anyway, g'night all! (why do I only manage to finish one of these things within a few minutes of midnight regardless of what time of day I start?)


End file.
